MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Hurricane Norma once again strengthened to a Category 3 storm as it approached a tourist hotspot on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
The hurricane – which at one point was a Category 4 out of five on the Saffir-Simpson scale – is now packing maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometres (km) per hour, the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest update. It had been a Category 2 storm earlier in the day.
Landfall was expected, with the tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas at the southern end of the Baja California peninsula, in the crosshairs. The eye of the storm was located roughly 200km south of the town, the NHC said. About 60,000 mostly foreign tourists are currently visiting the resort, local civil protection officials said.
High waves were already crashing onto the peninsula’s beaches, according to video broadcast by the television station Milenio.
The government activated a national emergency plan ahead of the storm’s arrival.
More than 6,600 soldiers were placed on alert in the states of Baja California and Baja California Sur, said the national defence secretariat.
Mexico’s Conagua national water commission said Norma could make landfall twice, reaching Baja California Sur as a hurricane, and again overnight in the state of Sinaloa after crossing the Gulf of California. Authorities are warning of potential flash floods, mudslides in higher areas, as well as dangerous surf.
Hurricanes hit Mexico every year on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, usually between May and November.
Just last week, the country’s west was hit by Hurricane Lidia, which left at least two dead after making landfall as a Category 4 storm, causing flooding.
Days earlier, Tropical Storm Max left two people dead and dozens of houses flooded in the southern state of Guerrero, one of the country’s poorest regions.
