Mexico on high alert as Hurricane Agatha prepares to hit


Hurricane Agatha, the first of the season off Mexico’s Pacific coast, made landfall Monday as a Category 2 cyclone in a tourist region that has been placed on medium alert, the United States National Hurricane Center reported. United States (NHC). Accompanied by winds of 165 km / h, Agatha, which moves at a speed of 13 km / h, is the “strongest hurricane” ever recorded on the Pacific coast of Mexico in May since 1949, according to the NHC.

The NHC has classified Agatha category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale which has 5 gradations. “Agatha is expected to weaken later in the night and dissipate over southeastern Mexico in the last hours of Tuesday,” the same source added. Agatha touched down around 4:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. GMT) on the coast of the state of Oaxaca (west) which attracts many surfers. Some 5,240 tourists have been identified in the risk zone, between the resorts of Puerto Escondido and Huatulco, according to local authorities.

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“It is a threat to the state of Oaxaca”

The Oaxaca government says it can shelter 26,800 people in 203 temporary shelters. “The hostels are open. People are coming,” said Roberto Castillo of Huatulco Civil Protection. “It is a threat to the state of Oaxaca,” said the local civil protection which declared the yellow alert (median).

Authorities have closed ports to shipping in these areas. Airlines have canceled flights since Sunday evening to Huatulco. Waves of a height of six meters are announced in Oaxaca and in the neighboring states of Guerrero and Chiapas, according to the weather service of Mexico (SMN).

The hurricane will cause heavy rains in the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, and in the neighboring states of Guerrero and Tabasco (southeast), had indicated the SMN. “Rainfall could cause landslides, increased river levels as well as flooding,” the SMN warned. Mexico is hit by tropical cyclones on its Pacific and Atlantic coasts every year, usually between May and November.





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