The storm killed at least 10 people in its violent passage through Mexico's Yucatan peninsula over the weekend, where tens of thousands of American and European tourists were forced to flee resorts or hide in shelters.

In Florida, The Miami Herald said the storm had killed at least four people, with two men killed by falling trees, one woman by flying debris and another man by a collapsing roof.

In Cuba, four people, including three foreign tourists, died in a bus accident as they evacuated Friday before the storm slammed the island.

Wilma slashed across Florida as a category-two storm on the five-level Saffir-Simpson intensity scale before regaining strength just off the Atlantic coast, where it grew into a category-three hurricane.

However, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast that the storm would weaken in the next day or so.

"Weakening is forecast, ... and Wilma will likely lose tropical characteristics during the next 24 hours," the center said in a 1500 GMT advisory.

"This motion should keep the center of Wilma well offshore of the northeastern United States," the center said, noting, however, that high surf from the storm will buffet mid-Atlantic states.

Wilma was about 570 kilometers (920 miles) east-northeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, speeding northeastward at 85 kilometers (53 miles) per hour, with winds near 165 kilometers (105 miles) per hour -- still a category-three storm.

Wilma was expected to reach Canadian waters by early Wednesday.

The storm left about 3.2 million homes without power in southeastern Florida, affecting some six million people, according to Florida Power and Light. It will take weeks to restore power to all customers, the company said.

The acting chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Paulison, urged those who evacuated to wait until authorities give them the green light to go home.

"Please, please don't go back until the local emergency managers tell you it's safe to go back," Paulison said in a news conference.

But many had ignored the evacuation calls in the southwestern city of Naples and in the Florida Keys island chain south of Florida.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush's brother, President George W. Bush, declared a major disaster in the southeastern US state, releasing federal funds to supplement state and local recovery efforts, and said that emergency aid was ready to be deployed.

"We have prepositioned food, medicine, communications equipment (and) urban search-and-rescue teams," the president said Monday.

He was keen to show that the US government was well prepared for the disaster after his administration was heavily criticized for its slow response to Hurricane Katrina, which claimed more than 1,200 lives after striking the southern US coast on August 29.

The Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, where the space shuttle is launched, shut down and told employees to stay home Monday.

Wilma could add as much as 10 billion dollars to US insurance companies' already hefty hurricane bill, insurance estimators said.

South of the Florida Keys, Havana began a massive cleanup after floodwaters whipped up by Wilma inundated parts of the Cuban capital.

"More than 2,000 homes were flooded and another 2,000 were damaged in Santa Fe, a west Havana neighborhood that was inundated," said Colonel Luis Angel Macareno, the deputy chief of civil defense.

Many parts of the Cuban capital remained with power Tuesday, but the authorites reported no fatalities from when the storm hit Havana and western Cuba early Monday.

Mexico said it will begin on Tuesday airlifting some of the 35,000 tourists stranded in Cancun.