Hurricane Irma's powerful winds on Friday began whipping the east and center of Cuba, where more than a million people have evacuated their homes as a precaution.

At 1600 GMT, the eye of the storm was located around 190 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Nuevitas, in Cuba's central Camaguey province, moving west-northwest at a speed of 22 kilometers per hour, according to the national weather institute, Insmet.

According to an AFP tally of Cuban civil defense figures, close to a million people have left their homes as a precaution -- either to stay with relatives or in official shelters.

Winds on Cuba's eastern coast were peaking at around 95 kilometers per hour (60 miles per hour), but heavy rains have already triggered flooding in coastal areas of the far eastern provinces of Holguin and Guantanamo.

Authorities were expecting both the wind and rain to pick up as the dangerous Category Four storm churns past the center of the island overnight Friday into Saturday, with Camaguey and Villa Clara provinces the most exposed.

The Caribbean's biggest island, Cuba has already evacuated 10,000 foreign tourists from beach resorts and raised its disaster alert level to maximum as Irma drew near.

Havana is expected to be spared the worst, but has been placed on hurricane alert as a precaution.

Packing winds of 155 miles per hour (250 kilometers per hour), Irma has left a trail of devastation across small islands in the Caribbean, and is set to barrel past Cuba on a collision course with the southeast US coast.

Source: AFP