SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Sept 30, (AP): Authorities in the Bahamas closed most schools on Monday as Tropical Storm Imelda dropped heavy rain in the northern Caribbean, including over Cuba where two people died as a result of the storm. The storm was located about 140 miles (220 kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island of the Bahamas, which is still recovering from Hurricane Dorian after it slammed into parts of the Bahamas as a devastating Category 5 hurricane in 2019.

Imelda had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph) and was moving north at 8 mph (13 kph). It was forecast to become a hurricane on Tuesday morning and spin out to open ocean, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. A tropical storm warning that had been in effect for parts of the extreme northwestern Bahamas, including Great Abaco, Grand Bahama Island and the surrounding keys, was lifted early Tuesday.

Power outages were reported in some areas, with authorities closing government offices on affected islands and issuing mandatory evacuation orders for some islands over the weekend. Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said late Monday that two people died after Imelda impacted eastern Cuba. On his X account, Marrero said the two people died in Santiago de Cuba province, but he didn’t give any details.

Earlier, state media reported that 60-year-old Luis Mario Pérez Coiterio had died in Santiago de Cuba following landslides in that area. In Santiago de Cuba, flooding and landslides cut off 17 communities, according to the official newspaper Granma. More than 24,000 people live in those communities. In Guantánamo, another impacted province, more than 18,000 people have been evacuated, according to reports from the state-run Caribe television channel.

Imelda was expected to drop 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain across the northwest Bahamas through Tuesday, and 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) across eastern Cuba. Meanwhile, Hurricane Humberto, which weakened to a Category 3 storm early Tuesday, churned in open waters nearby, which forecasters said would cause Imelda to abruptly turn to the east-northeast, away from the southeastern United States coast.

"This is really what’s going to be saving the United States from really seeing catastrophic rainfall,” said Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane expert for AccuWeather, a private US weather forecasting company. DaSilva said the two storms would draw closer and start rotating counterclockwise around each other in what's known as the Fujiwhara effect. "It’s a very rare phenomenon overall in the Atlantic basin,” he said.