Conditions growing dire in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico

San Juan : Living conditions in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico are growing worse by the day, with tired, bewildered people lining up to buy scarce fuel and food Sunday amid a blackout and little to no telephone service.

Puerto Ricans are spending hours waiting in line to buy whatever they can, but often go home empty-handed if they do not manage a purchase before a dusk to dawn curfew takes effect.

Cell phone service is spotty at best and hotels are also running out of diesel fuel for their generators.

The general manager of a Marriott hotel in the capital San Juan told guests that if they did not find diesel by Sunday night, the entire building would be evacuated.

Hurricane Maria slammed the US island territory before dawn Wednesday as a category 4 storm on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, as part of a vicious and deadly tear through the Caribbean.

The storm is blamed for 33 deaths, many of them on the tiny and poor island of Dominica and 13 in Puerto Rico.

Authorities are also trying to evacuate people living downriver from a dam said to be in danger of collapsing because of flooding from the hurricane.

The 1920's era earthen dam on the Guajataca River in northwest Puerto Rico cracked on Friday, prompting the government to issue an order for mass evacuations in downstream towns.

A Puerto Rican government official said the damage had sent water gushing through and prompted fears of flash flooding.

On Friday, public safety chief Hector Pesquera had cited a different cause for the initial dam failure, saying a drain that normally releases water from the dam in a controlled fashion had broken, sending it gushing out in torrents.