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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico - Hurricane Dean has strengthened into a monster Category 5 storm, threatening beach resorts on Mexico's Caribbean coast where thousands of tourists are huddled in shelters.
Dean, which has killed 11 people so far on its path through the Caribbean, packed howling winds of
around 256km/h, as it bore down on the Yucatan Pensula, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
Police ordered vehicles off the road and supermarket owners boarded up their windows on Mexico's "Mayan Riviera," a strip of beach resorts with bright white sands that is yet to fully recover from the devastation of Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
Rain began lashing the resort of Playa del Carmen and the nearby island of Cozumel on Monday evening local time as winds whipped in from the sea. Category 5 is the strongest type of hurricane and can cause widespread damage.
Dean was due to make landfall in a marshy zone near Mexico's border with Belize early on Tuesday local time. Troops and police patrolled the area to enforce a curfew declared by the state government.
About 400 tourists crowded for refuge in a Playa del Carmen hotel, with up to a dozen people per room.
"We're not happy about the conditions," said Kelly Bianchi, 30, a customer service agent and resident of New Orleans. "They don't tell us anything."
Category 5 hurricanes are rare but there were four in 2005, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans. The higher number of powerful storms in recent years has reinforced research that suggests global warming may increase the strength of tropical cyclones.
Dean brought back nightmare memories of Wilma, the strongest Atlantic storm recorded, which wrecked Cancun and other beach resorts. It washed away whole beaches, killed seven people and caused US$2.6 billion ($3.84 billion) in damages.
"A Category 5 is horrible. We've been through that," said Marcos Ruiz, 31, a tourism ministry official in Tulum, just north of Dean's path. "The wind is so strong you can't breathe."
The sea around the island of Cozumel, normally busy with yachts, diving boats and cruise ships, was ominously free of vessels as the waves became choppy and the sky darkened.
Mexico's state oil company was closing and evacuating all of its 407 oil and gas wells in the Campeche Sound, meaning lost production of 2.65 million barrels of crude per day.
Heavy rain began falling in Belize, a former British colony that is home to some 250,000 people and a famous barrier reef.
Belize's government encouraged people to move inland and long lines of cars formed the highways heading west toward higher ground in the capital of Belmopan and San Ignacio, a town close to the jungly Guatemalan border.
Dean swiped Jamaica at the weekend with howling winds and pelting rain. Roads were blocked by toppled trees and power poles and police said two people, a 14-year-old girl and a 44-year-old farmer, were killed.
That took the death toll from Dean to eleven. Haiti was worst hit with four people dead there.
Some 70,000 tourists have fled Cancun and the nearby area in recent days but the resort, whose five-star hotels were gutted by ferocious wind and waves in 2005, was not forecast to take a major hit this time around.
Poor local residents with badly built homes are often the worst hit by hurricanes in Mexico.
"Let's see if the house can stand it. If not, we'll go to the shelter," said Luisa Villafana, 27, an office cleaner who shares a thatched-roof home with eight other people near the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon was to cut short a visit to Canada, where he met President George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to return home on Tuesday to oversee the emergency effort.
The US space shuttle Endeavour was to return to Earth from the International Space Station a day early in case the storm forces Nasa to evacuate its Houston centre.
- REUTERS
