US News
Ernesto prompts shuttle delay, thrashes Cuba
By DPA
Aug 28, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Mexico City/Washington - Tropical Storm Ernesto thrashed Haiti and Cuba on Monday, and threatened to return to hurricane status - a prospect that prompted the US space programme to indefinitely postpone a shuttle launch this week.

Ernesto was downgraded late Sunday after making landfall across impoverished Haiti, already devastated by severe deforestation and erosion, and hit Cuba with 75 kilometere-an-hour wind speeds.

One person was killed in Haiti, CNN reported. Cuban officials said 300,000 people had been evacuated to safe ground.

Jose Rubiera, head of Cuba's meteorological institute, expected the storm would further diminish as it moved across Cuba.

But the US National Hurricane Center said Ernesto could pick up speed again to hurricane strength as it crosses the warm ocean waters on its way to Florida, where NASA was preparing to launch the shuttle Atlantis on the first major construction mission to the International Space Station in three years.

Mission managers were prepared to roll Atlantis back to its hangar, after the shuttle launch was already delayed once on Sunday by a lightning strike. Atlantis had been cleared for liftoff Tuesday, but launch has now been scrapped until week's end.

Now the question is whether Atlantis will be left on the pad to ride out the storm - expected to hit on Wednesday - and possibly launch over the weekend, or be returned to its hangar. In the latter case, NASA said the launch could be delayed until October. A decision will be made later Monday.

'It is clear in our minds that we are rolling back ... unless something really extraordinary happens,' he told reporters at Kennedy Space Centre.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of President George W Bush, declared a state of emergency in advance of the storm, to mobilize preparedness teams. Tourists on the Florida Keys were urged to move further inland. Schools were to remain closed in the Keys.

Florida officials and NASA were hoping the storm would veer to the east and miss Florida, which has been hit repeatedly in past years by strong hurricanes.

A hurricane watch was in effect along the Florida east coast, where NASA's Cape Canaveral is located, and for the Bimini Islands and Grand Bahama Island, the US National Hurricane Center said.

Ernesto is the first major Atlantic storm of 2006.