Hurricane hits Mexico tourist coast

Hurricane Ernesto has come ashore on Mexico’s Caribbean coast near the border with Belize, after hundreds of tourists left beach resorts and fishermen abandoned low-lying villages to avoid the threat.

Ernesto, which started the day as a tropical storm, had sustained winds of 85mph as its centre moved over the shore town of Mahahual, the US National Hurricane Centre said.

It said the storm was moving west at 15mph and was expected to weaken as it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula.

The only major city in the area, Chetumal, capital of Quintana Roo state, is about 40 miles from Mahuahal. Authorities earlier moved more than 1,300 tourists from resorts in Mahuahal, Balacar and other spots to Chetumal because the bayside city was expected to see less rain and wind than the coast.

In the city of Tulum to the north, 6,000 tourists were sheltering in hotels away from the beach and authorities said the structures were strong enough to qualify as storm shelters.

Authorities also prepared two nursery care centres in Tulum as shelters for up to 220 people.

Soldiers and police evacuated all 600 residents of Punta Allen, and authorities were preparing for the evacuation of people from other low-lying coastal settlements, said Luis Gamboa of Quintana Roo’s Civil Protection office.

Two cruises ships scheduled to dock on the Riviera Maya put off their arrival.

The heart of the storm was keeping to the south of the big resort areas of Cancun and the Riviera Maya, though strong rain and winds were possible in those areas. Officials prepared shelters as a precaution.

Forecasters said that after moving ashore, Ernesto was expected to cross Yucatan by this evening and enter the southern Gulf of Mexico in an area dotted with offshore oil platforms owned by the state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos.

Its predicted course would then take it to Mexico’s Gulf coast near the city of Veracruz, and the US hurricane centre said it might become a hurricane again just before reaching there tomorrow evening.

On its way to Yucatan, the storm swirled over open sea parallel to Honduras’s northern coast, but officials there said the storm had not caused damage or injuries.

Mexican authorities warned of possible flooding in some of the region threatened by Ernesto, where swollen rivers in the past have swept away houses, livestock and people, and collapsed mountainsides.