Florida, Bahamas on alert for Hurricane Dorian

Miami: Hurricane Dorian strengt-hened into an "extremely dangerous" storm on Friday as it bore down on the Bahamas and the east coast of the US state of Florida.

Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis urged residents of the Atlantic Ocean archipelago in the path of the "very powerful and potentially life-threatening hurricane" to seek safety.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said Dorian, which is expected to make landfall in the Bahamas on Sunday and in Florida late on Monday or Tuesday, "has strengthened to an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane" on a five-level scale.

The storm has winds near 220 km per hour, according to the NHC.

"A prolonged period of life-threatening storm surge and devastating hurricane-force winds are likely in portions of the northwestern Bahamas, where a hurricane warning is in effect," the NHC said.

Minnis, the Bahamas prime minister, told a press conference that the storm was life-threatening.