KINGSTON, Aug 29: Tropical Storm Gustav battered Jamaica on Friday, dumping rain and ripping roofs off homes and threatened to grow into a hurricane after leaving 59 people dead in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Anxiety also grew on the US Gulf Coast on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, as authorities in New Orleans mulled a possible mandatory evacuation to prevent a repeat of the devastation and deaths of 2005.

Authorities in Louisiana and Mississippi have already declared states of emergency before Gustav’s expected landfall late Monday, when it could strike as a powerful hurricane.

Gustav was forecast to move away from Jamaica later on Friday and head towards the Cayman Islands. It was expected to become a hurricane later in the day or by Saturday, the US National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory. It could become a “major hurricane” before reaching western Cuba on the weekend, the center said.—AFP