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The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment on Wednes­day warned cit­i­zens against drop­ping their guard as a weak­ened Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa moves to­wards the arch­i­pel­ago.

“Even a weak­ened hur­ri­cane re­tains the ca­pac­i­ty to bring se­ri­ous dev­as­ta­tion,” said the Min­is­ter of State with Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Dis­as­ter Risk Man­age­ment, Leon Lundy.

The hur­ri­cane, which lashed Ja­maica as a cat­e­go­ry  5 storm with winds in ex­cess of 180 miles per hour (mph) is now 150 miles south of Cen­tral Ba­hamas with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 110 mph.