Four people -- two police officers, a police employee, and a civilian -- remained missing after being swept from the causeway connecting the airport to the mainland on Friday afternoon, Lieutenant Wayne Caines said.

Police recovered their two vehicles from the ocean Saturday, he said.

Forty percent of the islands' electricity and 75 percent of its telephone service had been restored by midnight (0400 GMT Sunday), with utilities working round the clock to complete the job, he said.

Five hundred soldiers from the Bermuda Regiment and as many police officers had been deployed to help remove fallen trees and restore roofs ripped from buildings.

A damage estimate was not yet available, Caines said. The Emergency Measures Organization was expected to give an update Sunday.

Bermuda's airport was to reopen Sunday to private flights and to commercial flights "shortly thereafter".

"Everything is under control and clean-up is happening quite quickly," the spokesman stressed. "Our head is bloodied but not bowed," he added, quoting British poet William Ernest Henley.

The category 3 hurricane slammed the vacation spot with fierce winds and battering waves Friday and early Saturday before heading north over the Atlantic ocean.

At 11:00 p.m. Saturday (0300 GMT Sunday) Fabian was 980 kilometersmiles) south-southwest of the easternmost tip of Newfoundland, Canada, packing winds near 165 kilometers (105 miles) per hour, forecasters said.

Fabian was expected to weaken over the next 24 hours, according to the US National Weather Service's National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

TERRA.WIRE