HAVANA (AFP) -- Tropical Storm Fay moved towards hurricane strength Monday as it struck Cuba and barreled toward the Florida Keys after claiming more than 40 lives in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.

A truck carrying passengers plunged into a swollen river in Haiti, killing dozens, while the storm left another seven dead, civil protection officials told AFP.
Four people were killed in the Dominican Republic due to the heavy rains, with thousands evacuated, media reported.
In Miami, anxious residents descended on gas stations and supermarkets to fill up on petrol and bottled water. Television stations broadcast warnings about possible business shutdowns and power cuts.
In the Florida Keys, an archipelago of islands at the southern tip of the US state, authorities ordered the evacuation of tourists and closed schools ahead of the storm's expected arrival later Monday.
Maximum sustained winds from the sixth storm of the Atlantic hurricane season were clocked at 96 kilometers (60 miles) per hour, the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center said.
The center said Fay was expected ""to be approaching hurricane strength in Florida Keys and to become a hurricane before it reached the Florida Peninsula"" on Tuesday.
At 1200 GMT, the storm was located over central Cuba, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) southeast of Havana.
Fay was moving northwest at about 19 kilometers (12 miles) per hour, and expected to roll towards Florida.
The storm raked across Haiti, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, and red alerts were posted along with orders to evacuate flood zones as heavy rains and winds battered much of the country.
Civil Protection officials said the rains killed seven people across the country and left three others missing, two near Port-au-Prince and one in the southern part of the country.
About 30 people died when a truck loaded with an estimated 60 passengers plunged into the swollen Glace river in southwest Haiti, a civil protection official told AFP.
""It overturned as it was crossing a bridge on the river Glace,"" said local civil protection coordinator Silvera Guillaume. The precise number of victims remained unclear and first reports indicated only 14 people had survived.
In the Dominican Republic, more than 2,000 people were evacuated to shelters as the storm felled trees, damaged hundreds of houses and uprooted power lines disrupting supplies to more than 15,000 homes, according to news reports.
At least four people were killed in its deadly trail.
One woman reportedly died in Jamaica after her vehicle overturned in flood waters caused by rains from the storm.
Cuban authorities warned people to brace for the storm and more than 15,000 people have been evacuated from southern coastal areas between Matanzas and Havana.
A hurricane watch was in effect in eight of Cuba's 14 provinces, including Havana. Tropical storm warnings were in force in the Cayman Islands and a tropical storm watch was in effect for central Bahamas and Jamaica.
After crossing Cuba, Fay is then expected to head up the west coast of Florida, hitting land near Tampa on Tuesday and moving straight north into Georgia.
World oil prices rose on Monday as traders worried about the potential effect of Fay on energy facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for September delivery, added 35 cents to 114.12 dollars a barrel after bouncing above 115 in electronic deals.
Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell said that it had evacuated several hundred staff from the Gulf as a precaution.