PLAYA DEL CARMEN (Mexico), Oct 22: Hurricane Wilma relentlessly pounded Mexico’s Caribbean coast on Saturday, destroying homes and flooding beach resorts as it meandered slowly over the Yucatan peninsula.
Winds of 195 kph knocked over houses, upturned trees and kept thousands of tourists in cramped shelters.
The storm lost a bit of its punch — it was downgraded to a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale — but its winds and rains were still powerful enough to cause massive damage and threaten lives. Emergency forces reported no deaths so far.
Metal sheets flew off the roofs of homes in the beach resort of Playa del Carmen and spun dangerously through the streets.
“It’s a monster. It is roaring all the time,” said Guadalupe Torroella in the low-lying resort of Cancun, where the sea rushed onto the land and flooded international hotels.
At least five flimsy homes had collapsed in Mexico’s Playa del Carmen but their residents were among the tens of thousands who had already fled to damp shelters.
Wilma was still dumping torrential rain over a wide chunk of the Yucatan peninsula whose resorts are famous for turquoise seas and white sand. It was just 15 km from Cancun early Saturday and was drifting northward.
The stalled storm has battered Playa del Carmen, Cancun and diving center Cozumel for the past 36 hours and was due to hang over the area until at least Saturday night.
Wilma dumped 59 cm of rain on Friday on Isla Mujeres island, an unprecedented downpour for Mexico.
“We are talking about a record hurricane as far as rain is concerned,” said meteorologist Alberto Hernandez Unzon. He said Wilma was unusually big with a diameter of 800 km.
The town hall was littered with debris with windows blown out and furniture tossed onto office floors. Five prisoners escaped from a nearby jail into the jungle after a fence blew down.
In one hotel doubling as a shelter where there has been no electricity or running water for two days, Scott Whitcher, 38, stood on his balcony and bathed in the pouring rain.
“We are very fortunate to be in here. We were in a palm hut. I bet there is nothing left. I cannot wait for this to be over,” said the San Francisco resident.
All along Mexico’s “Maya Riviera,” thousands of stranded tourists huddled nervously in dank, sweaty gymnasiums and schools as the flimsy wooden beach cabins where many had been staying took a battering.
FLORIDA NEXT: Mudslides caused by rains from Wilma killed 10 people in Haiti earlier this week and Cuba was reeling as the storm drenched the west of the island and unleashed tornadoes.
Cuba evacuated 368,000 people from low-lying areas as it braced for coastal storm surges and floods.—Reuters
