By IANS
Chetumal (Mexico) : Hurricane Dean, packing winds of 266 kph, has lashed the southern end of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, but initial reports indicate that no one was killed, the Spanish news agency EFE said.
Residents remain in shelters and inside their homes on the recommendation of officials, who have asked people to stay off the streets.
It is still not possible to travel the streets of this city of some 160,000 residents because many thoroughfares are flooded and torrential rains continue to soak the area, although the winds have died down.
At the hotel where officials and reporters are staying, the damage was not as bad as had been feared.
But the windows of guest rooms, as well as the shelter prepared for the press, stood up well to the long night of strong winds.
Chetumal, a city located some 330 km south of the tourist Mecca of Cancun, is one of the four municipalities in Quintana Roo state that were placed on alert Monday for the approach of Dean, blamed for a dozen deaths across the Caribbean.
By 1500 GMT Tuesday, the storm had weakened to a Category 2, with maximum sustained winds of about 165 kph, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
The storm’s centre was located some 150 km west-northwest of Chetumal and roughly 140 km southeast of Campeche, moving westward at 32 kph.
Dean was expected to reach the southern Bay of Campeche – home of Mexico’s key offshore oil fields – by early Tuesday afternoon, the hurricane centre said.
Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez Canto, who rode out the storm in Chetumal, told Mexico’s W-Radio early Tuesday that the eye of the hurricane made landfall near the port of Majahual.
“Reports are that parts of the city are without electricity, with pylons and many trees down,” the governor said.
Quintana Roo and Yucatan states set up a total of 1,880 temporary shelters in schools and public buildings that were sturdier than the dwellings of many residents in the region, which has a large Mayan Indian population.
Many residents, however, refused to go to shelters ahead of the storm’s arrival, fearing that their possessions might be stolen if they left their homes.
From the early hours of Monday morning, tourists were evacuated from most of the hotels in Chetumal, which is near the border with Belize.