CORPUS CHRISTI: Powerful wind and heavy rain from Hurricane Harvey lashed the Gulf Coast of Texas on Saturday, uprooting trees, tearing off roofs and forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee, reports AFP.

Harvey, the most powerful storm to hit the US mainland in 12 years, roared ashore late Friday at the town of Rockport -- near Corpus Christi, a major US oil industry hub -- as a Category Four hurricane on the five-level storm scale, packing sustained winds of 130 miles per hour (215 kilometers per hour).

A few hours later the storm made a second landfall just north of Rockport as a Category Three hurricane, with winds of 125 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

Over the next hours Harvey lost strength as it moved inland over south Texas and eventually dropped to a still-dangerous Category One storm, with winds of 85 mph. "Additional weakening is forecast, and Harvey is likely to become a tropical storm later today," the NHC said at 1200 GMT. More damage however is expected from the heavy rain than from the strong wind: the NHC warned of likely "catastrophic and life-threatening flooding" due to the massive rainfall forecast and the huge storm surge, which could reach 13 feet (nearly four meters) in some places.