Almost two million people are left without electricity in Florida due to Hurricane 'Ian'

The hurricane descends to category two with wind gusts of up to 168 kilometers per hour

Just hours after 'Ian' made landfall in southwestern Florida as a Category 4 hurricane packing winds of up to 150 miles per hour, nearly two million people have been left without power across scores of counties around the world. the state.

Specifically, 1,814,000 people have suffered a collapse that has left a multitude of Florida counties totally or partially without electricity service, according to the website PowerOutage.us, which tracks blackouts throughout the United States. .

'Ian' has made landfall in southwestern Florida this Wednesday afternoon as a category four hurricane, tying the fifth strongest hurricane recorded in US history, according to 'The Washington Post'.

The hurricane is reminiscent of 2004's 'Charley', the strongest to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida panhandle, with winds of 150 miles per hour (240 kilometers per hour).

"At 3:05 a.m. (local time), the eye of Hurricane Ian made landfall near Key Coast, Florida, as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour," the National Hurricane Center said. (CNH) American on its official Twitter profile.

However, in the last few hours the hurricane has dropped to category two, with maximum winds of 168 kilometers per hour, moving northeast at 12 kilometers per hour, according to the latest CNH update.

"'Ian' continues to hit the Florida peninsula with catastrophic storm surge, wind and flooding," the hurricane center said in statements collected by CNN.

The agency has also warned that "catastrophic storm surges, winds and flooding" would continue as the storm moves inland.

Listed as "extremely dangerous", the CNH has warned that 'Ian', which has around 2.5 million people on evacuation alert, will soon "cause catastrophic storm surges, winds and floods".

About 21 million people are preparing to face blackouts and floods in the coming hours and the hurricane is expected to cause more than 67 billion dollars (68.8 billion euros) in damage and losses, according to the Bloomberg news agency.

The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has previously explained that, at the moment, there are already at least 200,000 power outages registered throughout the state of Florida, assuring that the interruption of the electrical network will be “widespread”.