With Ike forecast to sweep the length of Cuba and possibly hit Havana head-on, 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 Tuesday.

At least 58 people died as Ike's winds and rain swept Haiti Sunday — and officials found three more bodies from a previous storm — raising the nation's death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 319. A Dominican man was crushed by a falling tree.

Ike first slammed into the Turks and Caicos and the southernmost Bahamas islands as a Category 4 hurricane, but thousands rode out the storm in shelters and there was no immediate word of deaths on the low-lying islands.

Ike made landfall in eastern Cuba late Sunday night, said meteorologist Todd Kimberlain at the US National Hurricane Center, and was forecast to hit Havana, the capital of 2 million people with many vulnerable old buildings, before it moves into the Gulf of Mexico early Tuesday morning.

At 11:00pm EDT (0300 GMT), Ike was a Category 3 hurricane with top sustained winds of 120 mph (195 kph). It was centered near Cabo Lucretia, about 135 miles (220 kms) east of Camaguey, moving westward at 13 mph (20 kph).

State television broadcast images of the storm surge washing over coastal homes in the easternmost city of Baracoa, and reported that dozens of dwellings were damaged beyond repair.

An informal AP tally of figures being released sporadically by eastern Cuban provinces indicated that more than 770,000 people had been evacuated by Sunday evening. Former President Fidel Castro released a written statement calling on Cubans to heed security measures to ensure no one dies.

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 be prepared. It could hit us pretty hard," said Ramon Olivera, gassing up his motorcycle in Camaguey, where municipal workers boarded up banks and restaurants before heavy rain started falling.

More than 100 people waited in chaotic bread lines at each of the numerous government bakeries around town as families hoarded supplies before the storm. And on the provincial capital's outskirts, trucks and dented school buses brought about 1,000 evacuees to the sprawling campus of an art school.

Classrooms at the three-story school built on stilts were filled with metal bunk beds. The approaching hurricane brought a stiff breeze through the open windows.