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Hurricane Ida weakens after killing 124
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-09 19:56

HOUSTON: Hurricane Ida weakened to a Category 1 hurricane on Monday as it headed toward oil and gas facilities in the central Gulf of Mexico after killing 124 people in El Salvador following floods and mudslides.

Hurricane Ida weakens after killing 124
Salvadorans look at their houses that were damaged by heavy rains in San Salvador November 8, 2009. [Agencies]
Hurricane Ida weakens after killing 124

Ida's top sustained winds fell to 90 miles per hour and was expected to weaken further in the next 24 hours, the US National Hurricane Center said. But Ida was still expected to be a hurricane as it approached the US Gulf Coast on Monday night or early on Tuesday, bringing heavy rains.

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Ida was forecast to hit somewhere between Louisiana and Florida.

US oil companies were shutting production and evacuating workers from the Gulf in the face of Ida.

Oil rose more than $1 to above $78 a barrel on Monday on fears the hurricane would cut US oil and gas supplies.

Several large producers shut down some oil and gas production as a precautionary measure.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the only terminal in the United States capable of handling the largest tankers, stopped unloading ships due to stormy seas.

A quarter of US oil and 15 percent of its natural gas are produced from fields in the Gulf and the coast is home to 40 percent of the nation's refining capacity.

Hurricane Ida weakens after killing 124

A man carries a girl on a street damaged by heavy rains in Verapaz, about 71 km (44 miles) east to San Salvador November 8, 2009. Hurricane Ida roared into the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, where important oil fields are located, after killing 91 people and leaving at least another 60 missing in floods and mudslides in El Salvador. [Agencies]Hurricane Ida weakens after killing 124

In El Salvador, rivers burst their banks and hillsides collapsed under relentless rains triggered by Ida's passage, cutting off parts of the mountainous interior from the rest of the country.

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