One of the strongest hurricanes in history lashed
western Mexico with wind and rain early on Saturday, sowing chaos in coastal
towns and popular tourist resorts although early reports showed it causing less
damage than feared.
Massive storm Patricia batters Mexico's Pacific
coast, damage unclear
Mowing down trees, flooding streets and battering
buildings, Hurricane Patricia ploughed into Mexico as a Category 5 storm on
Friday before grinding inland, where it began to lose power in the mountains that
rise up along the Pacific coast.
Around 15,000 tourists were hurriedly evacuated from
the beach resort of Puerto Vallarta as people scrambled to get away from the
advancing hurricane, whose massive swirl over Mexico could be seen clearly from
space.
"It sparked chaos here, it ruined a lot of
things, took down the roof, lots of trees. Things are in a bad state where we
work," said Domingo Hernandez, a hotel worker in the resort of Barra de
Navidad near to the major port of Manzanillo.
Thousands of residents and tourists ended up in
hastily improvised shelters but there were no early reports of fatalities and
many felt they had escaped lightly.
At one point generating sustained winds of 200 miles
per hour (322 km per hour), Patricia was the strongest hurricane ever recorded
in the Western Hemisphere.
It then lost much of its power as it careened onto
Mexican soil northwest of Manzanillo and by early on Saturday it had been
downgraded to a Category 2 storm with winds of up to around 100 mph.
Source:reuters
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