Hurricane Maria has intensified and turned into a very serious category 4 hurricane on the five-degree Saffir Simpson scale, the US National Hurricane Center said.
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The center, based in Miami, said Hurricane Maria Bat, 55 km from the El Trenic Islands, was carrying winds of up to 215 kilometers per hour.
According to Reuters, officials from the Martinique islands controlled by France and the US Virgin Islands asked residents to prepare for the storm, which US meteorologists said had become a Category 3 hurricane on the scale of the "Savier Simpson", which consists of five degrees.
The hurricane is expected to continue to gain strength over the next two days, the center said.
Residents left some islands before the storm arrived.
Hurricane warnings have been put into effect in a series of islands in the region, including the US Virgin Islands, Britain, Antigua, Barbuda and Saint-Martin divided between the Netherlands and France.
Many of these islands were devastated this month when hurricane Erma hit the Caribbean.
Puerto Rico had already begun preparations for Hurricane Maria and hurricane Erma had invaded the United States as it headed towards Cuba and Florida. Puerto Rico has opened shelters and has begun dismantling construction cranes that may be at risk from the heavy winds of hurricane Maria.
More than 1,700 Barbuda residents were evacuated to their neighbor Antigua after Hurricane Erma destroyed most of the houses there.
Meteorologists also follow Hurricane Jose, a Class I, with winds of up to 120 km / h and located 430 km to the east and southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
The epicenter of Hurricane Josiah is expected to remain off the east coast of the United States in the next few days, accompanied by dangerous strong waves to the beaches stretching from Delaware to Massachusetts