Hurricane hits Mexico

PLAYA DEL CARMEN – Hurricane Dean, a monster Category 5 storm, made landfall on Mexico’s Caribbean coast yesterday, with roaring winds and heavy rain that battered beach resorts where thousands of tourists huddled in shelters.

Seas churned as the eye of the storm, which has already killed 11 people on its rampage through the Caribbean, smashed into the shore near the cruise ship port of Costa Maya, not far from the border with Belize. The US National Hurricane Centre said it was the first Category 5 storm to make landfall in the Atlantic Basin since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.Dean was still packing sustained winds of 268 kph, with gust of up to 200 mph when it came ashore, but was expected to weaken as it passed over the Yucatan Peninsula.Tourists squeezed into a hotel serving as a shelter for 400 people in the resort of Playa del Carmen, where winds violently shook palm trees.As many as 12 people were sharing some rooms.”We could be two or three days without water or electricity,” said Italian vacationer Emanuela Beriola, 41, who stockpiled tinned meat, energy drinks and cans of tuna fish.Dean was due to cross the Yucatan and come out in the Gulf of Mexico before hitting land again in the Mexican state of Veracruz.Category 5 hurricanes – the strongest possible – are rare but there were four in 2005, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.The higher number of powerful storms in recent years has reinforced research that suggests global warming may increase the strength of tropical cyclones.”I’m not scared.I telephoned my daughter and my mother and they are more worried than me,” said German tourist Christian Muller, an engineer.Troops and police patrolled the area to enforce a curfew declared by the state government.Store windows were boarded up along the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, a strip of beach resorts with bright white sands that is yet to fully recover from the devastation of Hurricane Wilma in 2005.The strongest Atlantic storm recorded, Wilma wrecked Cancun and other beach resorts.It washed away whole beaches, killed seven people and caused $2,6 billion in damages.Nampa-ReutersThe US National Hurricane Centre said it was the first Category 5 storm to make landfall in the Atlantic Basin since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.Dean was still packing sustained winds of 268 kph, with gust of up to 200 mph when it came ashore, but was expected to weaken as it passed over the Yucatan Peninsula.Tourists squeezed into a hotel serving as a shelter for 400 people in the resort of Playa del Carmen, where winds violently shook palm trees.As many as 12 people were sharing some rooms.”We could be two or three days without water or electricity,” said Italian vacationer Emanuela Beriola, 41, who stockpiled tinned meat, energy drinks and cans of tuna fish.Dean was due to cross the Yucatan and come out in the Gulf of Mexico before hitting land again in the Mexican state of Veracruz.Category 5 hurricanes – the strongest possible – are rare but there were four in 2005, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.The higher number of powerful storms in recent years has reinforced research that suggests global warming may increase the strength of tropical cyclones.”I’m not scared.I telephoned my daughter and my mother and they are more worried than me,” said German tourist Christian Muller, an engineer.Troops and police patrolled the area to enforce a curfew declared by the state government.Store windows were boarded up along the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, a strip of beach resorts with bright white sands that is yet to fully recover from the devastation of Hurricane Wilma in 2005.The strongest Atlantic storm recorded, Wilma wrecked Cancun and other beach resorts.It washed away whole beaches, killed seven people and caused $2,6 billion in damages.Nampa-Reuters