The eye of the powerful storm moved over Barbados Tuesday afternoon, and headed for the eastern Caribbean, where officials issued a hurricane warning for St Vincent, the Grenadines and Grenada.

Ivan packed sustained winds of 195 kilometers (miles) per hour and was expected to strengthen further, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

"Indications are that there will be a very dangerous hurricane over the northwestern Carribean sea, western Cuba or the southeastern Gulf of Mexico in five days," the NHC said.

In Barbados, "there is an island-wide power outage, expect for the major health care facility, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital," the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) said.

"There are also reports of roof loss, downed utility poles and trees," the agency said, adding that there were also reports of coastal damage from storm surge.

Late Tuesday afternoon the center of the powerful hurricane, the second in just days, was located 35 kilometers (20 miles) west-southwest of Grenada.

The Netherlands Antilles Tuesday morning put the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao under a hurricane watch, which means the storm could hit them within 36 hours.

In central and eastern Venezuela, officials suspended all air and maritime traffic.

Long-term forecasts, which have a wide margin of error, have the hurricane slamming into Jamaica on Friday and then into Cuba on Sunday.

This would bring the storm dangerously close to Florida, which has just been pounded by Frances, the second hurricane to hit the southeastern US state in three weeks.

The Bahamas islands also were severely impacted by the passage of Frances last week.