Hurricane Dean bashes Mexico, slows down

TECOLUTLA – Hurricane Dean closed in on the Mexican mainland yesterday, battering evacuated oil platforms and forcing thousands to flee as it regained some of the force it unleashed on the Yucatan Peninsula.

As winds picked up, emergency workers drove trucks with loudspeakers drove through the rainy streets of the small port city of Tecolutla calling on people to gather their belongings and leave. Army trucks collected evacuees and headed inland ahead of the storm centre’s expected arrival by early afternoon.At least 10 000 others were evacuated in Tuxpan to the north, said Veracruz state Governor Fidel Herrera.Dean swept across the Yucatan on Tuesday after making landfall as a ferocious Category 5 hurricane, toppling trees, power lines and houses – but sparing glitzy resorts on the Mayan Riviera.Driving rain, poor communications and impassable roads made it difficult to determine how isolated Mayan communities fared in the sparsely populated jungle where Dean made landfall after killing 13 people in the Caribbean.Greatly weakened from that overland journey, Dean moved across the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico, home to 100 oil platforms, three major oil exporting ports and the Cantarell oil field, Mexico’s most productive.Seventy per cent of Ciudad del Carmen was flooded yesterday morning, with water a metre deep in many houses in the oil city of 120 000, Campeche state Gov.Jorge Carlos Hurtado told Mexico’s Televisa network.There, too, no deaths were reported.The centre of the sprawling, westward storm was projected to slam into the mainland Wednesday afternoon around Tuxpan – with hurricane force winds extending out 110 kilometres miles.Tropical storm force winds blew 325 kilometres from the centre.Coastal Laguna Verde, Mexico’s only nuclear power plant, suspended production.At 12h00 GMT, Dean was a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 150 kph and was centred about 195 kilometres east-southeast of Tuxpan, the US National Hurricane Centre said.It was moving west-northwest at about 32 kph.Nampa-APArmy trucks collected evacuees and headed inland ahead of the storm centre’s expected arrival by early afternoon.At least 10 000 others were evacuated in Tuxpan to the north, said Veracruz state Governor Fidel Herrera.Dean swept across the Yucatan on Tuesday after making landfall as a ferocious Category 5 hurricane, toppling trees, power lines and houses – but sparing glitzy resorts on the Mayan Riviera.Driving rain, poor communications and impassable roads made it difficult to determine how isolated Mayan communities fared in the sparsely populated jungle where Dean made landfall after killing 13 people in the Caribbean.Greatly weakened from that overland journey, Dean moved across the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico, home to 100 oil platforms, three major oil exporting ports and the Cantarell oil field, Mexico’s most productive.Seventy per cent of Ciudad del Carmen was flooded yesterday morning, with water a metre deep in many houses in the oil city of 120 000, Campeche state Gov.Jorge Carlos Hurtado told Mexico’s Televisa network.There, too, no deaths were reported.The centre of the sprawling, westward storm was projected to slam into the mainland Wednesday afternoon around Tuxpan – with hurricane force winds extending out 110 kilometres miles.Tropical storm force winds blew 325 kilometres from the centre.Coastal Laguna Verde, Mexico’s only nuclear power plant, suspended production.At 12h00 GMT, Dean was a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 150 kph and was centred about 195 kilometres east-southeast of Tuxpan, the US National Hurricane Centre said.It was moving west-northwest at about 32 kph.Nampa-AP