Hurricane Milton marches across central Florida, destroying homes

Hurricane Milton marched across central Florida on Thursday after making landfall on the state's west coast hours earlier, whipping up deadly tornadoes, destroying homes and knocking out power to nearly 2 million customers.

The storm made landfall around 8:30 pm EDT (0030 GMT) on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (195 kph) near Siesta Key, Reuters reported, citing the US National Hurricane Centre.

By 11 pm EDT (0300 GMT), wind speeds had reduced to 105 mph (165 kph), dropping Milton to a Category 2 hurricane, nonetheless still considered extremely dangerous. The eye of the storm was 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Orlando in the centre of the state.

More than 1.8 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power, according to PowerOutage.us. Nearly a quarter of Florida's gasoline stations were out of fuel on Wednesday afternoon.

The storm was expected to cross the Florida peninsula overnight and emerge into the Atlantic, still with hurricane force, on Thursday.

Once past Florida, it should weaken over the western Atlantic, possibly dropping below hurricane strength but still posing a storm-surge danger on the state's Atlantic Coast.