Havana/Port-au-Prince/Miami  - With nearly one-tenth of its population evacuated to safety, the whole of Cuba was in a state of emergency over Hurricane Ike Monday, with sustained winds of 130 kilometres per hour and higher gusts lashing the Caribbean island.

Ike has already left 72 dead in Haiti, bringing to 300 the poverty-stricken country's death toll from four tropical storms and hurricanes this season.

Ike could veer in a more westerly direction after it leaves Cuba, and the National Weather Center in Miami, Florida, cast a possible trajectory cone that swept from eastern Louisiana, along the Texas coast and down into Mexico over the coming days.

Florida's coastal areas breathed a sigh of relief as the storm changed course, and evacuees and tourists returned back to the spared Florida Keys.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Lowell was forming on the Pacific coast of Mexico, with sustained winds of 85 kilometres per hour and higher gusts.

While Ike had weakened to category 1 on the five-part Saffir Simpson scale as it travelled overland through Cuba, weather forecasters said it could pick up strength again as it moved back over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Cuban authorities, who have evacuated 1 million people to safety, extended the "cyclone alarm" to include the western provinces of Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth which were devastated by Hurricane Gustav just a week ago.

Cuban authorities called upon people in Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth to suspend reconstruction work on damage caused by Gustav" in the face of the approaching wallop from Ike. Gustav hit the area more than a week ago with sustained winds of 220 kilometres per hour, causing partial or total damage to over 100,000 homes and devastating infrastructure - including the electricity network - and agriculture.

Experts at Cuba's Forecast Centre at the Cuban Meteorology Institute (INSMET) said they were uncertain of where Ike would exit Cuba.

INSMET director Jose Rubiera said the country will need to wait a few hours to get a clearer idea of Ike's final trajectory in western Cuba.

While Cuba deployed soldiers to clear detritus from storm sewers and the government ran an efficient evacuation, the hemisphere's poorest country Haiti was still reeling from dozens of deaths still being counted two days after Ike crashed onto its shores. The prospect of hunger loomed after Ike nearly destroyed the country's agriculture sector.

Thomas Joseph Wills, mayor of the hard-hit town of Cabaret, said Monday that 59 bodies had been found in his town alone, including 18 children, after Ike's torrential rains caused the Bretelle River to breach its banks and flood the entire city.

Another 15 people were missing in this town of 70,000 some 30 kilometres north-west of the capital Port-au-Prince 15. Fifty people were also injured in the flooding caused by the rain-heavy Ike.

Wills noted that four other people died in the village of Arcahaie and nine others in Casale, while a large part of the population in the area remained isolated and had no access to food or water.

Earlier Monday, Ike tore through eastern and central Cuba, driving waves as high as 15 metres ashore and destroying dozens of homes.

On its way to Cuba, Ike also swept destruction across the Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.

Rescue officials were bracing for higher death tolls as the rain continued across the Caribbean.

Cuba over the weekend asked the US government to suspend its decades-old embargo on exports of desperately needed material for recovery and protection of human life. But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a resounding "no" to the request on Sunday. (dpa)