Washington-SANA
Hurricane Laura, which swept through the US state of Louisiana last night, claimed the lives of four people due to falling trees in addition to the destruction of buildings in towns and cities throughout the southwest of the state.
"This was the strongest storm sweeping Louisiana ... It continues to inflict material losses and threaten lives," Governor John Bill Edwards said in a press conference quoted by Reuters.
In the aftermath of the hurricane, a chemical plant in Westlake, to the west of Lake Charles, burst into flames and erupted into plumes of black smoke, and Edwards urged residents of the area around the plant to stay where they were and close the doors, windows and air conditioners until the authorities completed the investigation into the fire.
Earlier, the National Hurricane Center said that the hurricane made landfall as a Category Four storm, loaded with winds of 240 kilometers per hour, sweeping through the small town of Cameron in Louisiana and then transformed into a first-class storm accompanied by a maximum speed of 120 kilometers per hour and then turned into a tropical storm.
During the past two days, Hurricane Laura killed 25 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, causing massive floods.