Tourists fleeing Hurricane Rina crowded Cancun’s airport even as the cyclone lost some of its punch on a course for Mexico’s resort-studded Caribbean coast.

Monroe County officials have ordered visitors out of Florida Keys ahead of Hurricane Wilma, the first US evacuations caused by the Category 5 storm.

Wilma, the record-equalling 12th hurricane of the Atlantic season, is poised to become a major category four storm as it steams along a track that will take it past Central America, Cancun, Cuba and eventually into Florida.