Dorian hurricane strengthens to Category 3, death toll increases

Hurricane Dorian, which has left at least 20 people dead in the Bahamas, was upgraded to a Category 3 storm late Wednesday as it bore down on the southeast US coast, meteorologists said.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Dorian, which has already wrought major damage on Grand Bahama and Abaco islands, was packing maximum sustained winds of 115 miles per hour (185 kilometers per hour), making it a Category 3 storm on the five-level scale.

At 11:00 pm (0300 GMT Thursday), the NHC said Dorian was located 105 miles south of Charleston, South Carolina and moving north at around seven miles per hour.