CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas, Dhu-AlHijjah 04, 1438, August 26, 2017, SPA -- Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas late Friday, lashing a wide swath of the Gulf Coast with strong winds and torrential rain from the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade, AP reported. The National Hurricane Center said the eye of the Category 4 hurricane made landfall about 10 p.m. about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Corpus Christi, bringing with it 130 mph (209 kph) sustained winds and flooding rains. Harvey's approach sent tens of thousands of residents fleeing the Gulf Coast, hoping to escape the wrath of a menacing storm that threatened an area of Texas including oil refineries, chemical plants and dangerously flood-prone Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had warned that the monster system would be "a very major disaster," and the predictions drew fearful comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest ever to strike the U.S. The hurricane center warned that Harvey could produce life-threatening storm surges basically walls of water moving inland along an area of more than 400 miles (643 kilometers) from south of Corpus Christi to north of Houston. --SPA 12:42 LOCAL TIME 09:42 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w474197