Cape Verde avoids major damage as Hurricane Fred moves on

Bissau (AFP) - Hurricane Fred headed away from the West African archipelago of Cape Verde on Tuesday, causing no deaths, a day after slamming it with winds of up to 140 kilometres (85 miles)per hour, local officials said.

It was the first hurricane strike on Cape Verde, a group of 10 volcanic islands located 500 kilometres (300 miles) off Senegal, since 1892, US weather experts have said.

"At around 5 a.m. today, the hurricane's speed abated to the point of becoming a tropical storm," Efemio Brito, the head of the national weather institute INMG, told national radio.

Tropical storms pack winds of up 117 kph.

Fred, a category one hurricane on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, had moved away from Santo Antao island and was on Tuesday headed in a north-westerly direction.

Arlindo Lima, the head of the 10-island archipelago's civil protection service, said there had been property damage but no deaths.

He said strong winds had uprooted trees and electricity poles on the island of Sao Nicolau but "there has been no loss of human life and that's good news for us."