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Gustav slams Cuba as Cat 4 storm; many evacuated 

Gustav howled into Cuba's Isla de Juventud as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane on Saturday while both Cubans and Americans scrambled to flee the path of the fast-growing storm.

Forecasters said Gustav was just short of becoming a top-scale Category 5 hurricane as it powered its way toward mainland Cuba, where authorities were hurriedly evacuating more than 240,000 people from the nation's tobacco-rich western tip. . . .

The government said it had evacuated some 190,000 people from low-lying parts of westernmost Cuba, Pinar del Rio province, where the tobacco for the island's famed cigars is grown.

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