PUERTO LA LIBERTAD, El Salvador: Hurricane Adrian slammed into El Salvador's coast before dawn on Friday, cutting off power and forcing officials to close schools and evacuate some 14,000 people. The storm quickly weakened as it raced across Central America.

The centre of the hurricane hit a stretch of coast near the capital, San Salvador, according to the United States National Hurricane Centre, which reported maximum sustained winds of almost 120 kph as it made landfall.

Adrian weakened quickly as it moved out of El Salvador and across Honduras at about 19 kph. By morning, its winds were down to 65 kph and the Hurricane Centre said it could dissipate before reaching the Caribbean.

The first recorded Pacific hurricane to strike El Salvador and the eastern Pacific's first tropical storm of the season washed out roads and unleashed heavy rains that forecasters had said could cause devastating flooding.

In Honduras, officials on Friday reported some flooding, landslides that blocked some roads and the loss of some flimsy houses, but no deaths.

Salvadoran media reported scattered landslides but no casualties.

El Salvador's President Tony Saca warned his countrymen: "This emergency situation isn't over yet."

But he said that "being an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of El Salvador, the civil defence system of the Republic of El Salvador has responded in great measure to this point."

The country's National Service for Territorial Studies reported the hurricane hit land near the port of Acajutla, about 55 kilometres west of the capital, San Salvador.

US forecasters placed Adrian closer to Puerto La Libertad, the beach resort and seafood centre closest to El Salvador's capital, San Salvador.

Streets in La Libertad were deserted as people sought refuge in their homes after power went out and rains sprayed across an increasingly agitated surf.

"The wind is getting stronger and it's raining nonstop," Jorge Alberto Turcios, a guard at a restaurant in La Libertad, said as the storm approached. "The waves are getting higher, there's not a soul on the street."

Earlier, Saca broadcast an appeal for his citizens to obey evacuation requests.

"We understand that they are guarding their belongings, but lives are worth more than anything," he told Radio La Chevere.

Authorities evacuated about 14,000 people from low-lying coastal areas, in some cases using helicopters as waters rose.

Most were taken to shelters at schools, where classes were cancelled.

Rivers rose in both El Salvador and in neighbouring Honduras, both nations devastated by Hurricane Mitch - a Caribbean storm - in 1998 that killed at least 9,000 people.

The region, where many people live in shacks clinging to sharp ravines, is particularly vulnerable to flooding and landslides.

Already one death was indirectly linked to the storm - a military pilot died on Wednesday when he crashed a small plane that he was ferrying from San Salvador's civilian airport to a military base as a precaution against the heavy winds. Officials did not give the cause of the accident.

In neighbouring Guatemala, two workers were killed in the collapse of a ditch they were digging under a light rain in the village of Caxaque, 260 kilometres west of Guatemala City. Local firefighters said it was unclear whether the collapse was related to the rains.

(China Daily 05/21/2005 page7)