North Carolina, September 16: Hurricane Florence has lashed the eastern coast of the United States. However, it was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm. As per the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the storm is likely to produce top winds of 80km/h and almost 40cm of additional rain will batter the states of North and South Carolina. According to reports, at least 12 people have lost their lives by Saturday. More than a million people have also left without power the East Coast.

The first death was reported on Friday after Florence made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at  7:15 am local time (11:30 GMT) at Wrightsville Beach, a few kilometres east of Wilmington, and By 4:50 pm (20:50GMT) on Friday, NHC had downgraded the hurricane to a tropical storm. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper have expressed concerns over the storm. He said that many areas of the state might witness floods.

According to reports, a gust of 169km/h was recorded at Wilmington airport on Friday. Around 1.7 million in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to evacuate. The coastal towns in the Carolinas were empty, and schools and college were also shut. The NHC has also issued a warning of a couple of tornadoes that are to hit North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina on Sunday.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 16, 2018 02:55 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).