A top-level investigation was under way today after a huge gas blast devastated a resort hotel on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, killing seven people, including five Canadian tourists.

MEXICAN police discovered six dead bodies in a cavern near the tourist resort of Cancun, three of them cut open with their hearts removed.

Howling wind and rain from Hurricane Emily lashed beaches in the Mexican resort of Cancun today, after thousands of tourists, many of them Britons, were evacuated from their hotels to improvised shelters at schools and gymnasiums.

A massive evacuation of tourists in one of the world’s biggest resorts was set to begin today, as hundreds of buses were dispatched to move tens of thousands out of the path of Hurricane Emily.