CAMAGUEY(Cuba): Hurricane Ike roared across low-lying islands and bore down on Cuba, destroying homes, sweeping away boats and bringing more rain to waterlogged communities in Haiti, where it killed 48 more people.

Slamming into the southern Bahamas, Ike bore down on Cuba on a path that could hit Havana head-on, and hundreds of thousands evacuated to shelters or higher ground. To the north, residents of the Florida Keys fled up a narrow highway, fearful that the "extremely dangerous" hurricane could hit them on Tuesday.

At least 48 people died as Ike's winds and rain swept Haiti, raising the nation's death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 306. A Dominican man was crushed by a falling tree. It was too early to know of deaths on other islands where the most powerful winds were still blowing.

The center of the hurricane hit the Bahamas' Great Inagua island, where screaming winds threatened to peel plywood from the windows of a church sheltering about 50 people, shelter manager Janice McKinney said.

"All we can do is hunker down and pray," reserve police officer Henry Nixon said from different Great Inagua shelter, where about 85 people huddled around a radio.

Great Inagua has about 1,000 people and about 50,000 West Indian flamingos - the world's largest breeding colony. Both populations sought safety from the winds and driving rain - the pink flamingos gathered in mangrove thickets. Biologists worried that their unique habitat would be destroyed by the storm.

"There's a possibility that the habitat can't really be replaced, and that they can't find an equivalent spot," said Greg Butcher, bird conservation director for the National Audubon Society. "You might have a significant drop in the number of flamingos."

At 5pm EDT (2100 GMT), Ike's eye moved west from Great Inagua Island in the southeastern Bahamas and weakened slightly to a Category 3 hurricane with top winds of 120 mph (195 kph). It was moving westward at 14 mph (22 kph), about 30 miles off Cuba's northern coast, and was about 75 miles (120 kms) from Guantanamo.

The US National Hurricane Center predicted Ike's eye would strike somewhere along Cuba's northern coast on Sunday night and possibly hit Havana, the capital of 2 million people with many vulnerable old buildings by Monday night.

Cuba's government said more than 224,000 people were being evacuated in the central-eastern province of Camaguey alone. Foreign tourists were pulled out from vulnerable beach resorts, workers rushed to protect coffee plants and other crops, and plans were under way to distribute food and cooking-oil to disaster areas.

"There's no fear here, but one has to prepared. It could hit us pretty hard," said Ramon Olivera, gassing up his motorcycle in Camaguey, where municipal workers were boarding up banks and restaurants and teams of employees covered sheet-glass windows with corrugated metal.

The first islands to bear Ike's fury were the Turks and Caicos, which have little natural protection from storm surges. This one was expected to be up to 18 feet (5.5 meters).

The British territory's Premier Michael Misick said more than 80 percent of the homes were damaged on two islands and people who didn't take refuge in shelters were cowering in closets and under stairwells, "just holding on for life."