Grace becomes a powerful Category 3 hurricane before arriving in Mexico

Storm Grace became a powerful Category 3 hurricane on Friday evening, August 20, before reaching the coasts of Mexico for the second time, the American Hurricane Monitoring Center (NHC) announced.

“Grace quickly became a major hurricane”, reported the NHC, which located it, Saturday at 3 am GMT (5 hours in Paris), 120 kilometers from Tuxpan, in the state of Veracruz (east), with sustained winds of 195 km / h.

In the port of Veracruz, businesses have placed boards and protections on windows and doors, while fishermen have sheltered 300 boats. “We will spend many days without fishing, almost a week, we are affected, like 35,000 fishermen, because we cannot go out”Isabel Pastrana Vázquez, president of the Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives of Veracruz, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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Residents secured their homes after stocking up on preserves and water. The authorities have set up 200 shelters and are ready to activate 2,000 more if necessary. By late afternoon, most of the roads in Veracruz had been closed.

Tourists evacuated from Quintana Roo

Grace made landfall on Thursday morning near the resort town of Tulum, on the Caribbean coast of Mexico, as a Category 1 hurricane. The planes were grounded and tourists were forced to spend the night in shelters. specific.

The hurricane crossed the Yucatan Peninsula without killing any people, reported Carlos Joaquin, the governor of the state of Quintana Roo. He said water and electricity had been restored to the state.

Placed on red alert, Quintana Roo had sheltered more than 6,000 tourists and residents, according to the authorities in this sparsely populated area. In the town of Tulum, where employees were cleaning fallen tree branches and other debris, no major material damage was to be deplored.

Hurricane Grace had been downgraded to a tropical storm on land but had regained strength as it returned to sea.

The World with AFP