Dangerously gathering strength, Hurricane Emily lumbered toward the shores of Mexico’s Tamaulipas state on Wednesday, where it is expected to make final landfall after killing 10 people in the Caribbean and lashing the Yucatan peninsula.
”The State Council for Civil Protection has declared a red alert,” the Tamaulipas state government said in a statement.
Most of the estimated 17 000 people living in the coastal area directly in the path of Emily have been evacuated to shelters, said local officials.
The storm, which has been upgraded to category three, is packing sustained winds of 205kph, with indications it could strengthen even further before landfall, the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.
The threatened coastal areas are sparsely populated, but forecasts indicated the storm’s inland track could eventually take it dangerously close to Monterrey, Mexico’s third-largest city with about four million inhabitants.
Forecasters said Emily will slam ashore early on Wednesday near the small Mexican fishing village of La Pesca, 245km south of the United States border.
The eye of the storm, however, ”is wobbling” and could track further north or south, said the NHC, which predicted coastal storm surge flooding of 2,1m to 3m above normal tide levels, accompanied by ”large and dangerous battering waves”.
Coastal areas of southern Texas close to the border are also under a hurricane warning.
After crossing the tip of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, the deadly hurricane regained steam on Tuesday, reaching category three on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
”Some additional strengthening is possible and Emily could become a category-four hurricane before landfall,” the NHC warned. Sustained winds under such conditions would clock 210kph to 249kph.
”Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the centre said.
Tamaulipas authorities have set up close to 1 000 emergency shelters as Emily barrels toward shore.
Strong winds preceding the storm already sent a radio broadcast antenna crashing down on a house in Nuevo Laredo, causing no injuries to its occupants, local officials said.
In neighbouring Texas, residents of Brownsville boarded up windows and stocked up on basic supplies, while hundreds of tourists left South Padre island, which is likely to experience strong winds and pounding rain as the storm makes landfall.
At 7am GMT on Wednesday, the centre of Hurricane Emily was 145km south-southeast of Matamoros, Mexico, according to the NHC.
Emily was at a rare category four when it pounded Mexico’s Caribbean coast on Monday, tearing down trees and power lines, after it sent tens of thousands of tourists fleeing Cancun and other popular resorts.
A German man was electrocuted and killed on Sunday in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen as he prepared his house for the hurricane.
But the peninsula at the south-eastern tip of Mexico escaped comparatively lightly. Authorities estimated damage at about $25-million and said tourist facilities were hardly affected.
The storm was blamed for another nine deaths as it thundered across the Caribbean last week.
Emily, however, has spared most Mexican and US oil platforms in the Gulf, many of which had been evacuated hours before the winds and surf picked up.
Emily is the second Atlantic hurricane of the year. It formed just days after Hurricane Dennis roared across the Caribbean and into Florida, leaving at least 62 dead, most of them in Haiti.
China grapples with typhoon havoc
Meanwhile, one person was reported dead and several missing on Wednesday as China grappled with the havoc left by Typhoon Haitang, whose blasting winds and rain forced one million people from their homes.
Houses collapsed, trees toppled and mudslides engulfed roads as the most violent storm of the season pounded two coastal provinces late on Tuesday, leaving more than 1 000 people trapped by raging floodwaters.
”The police saved my life. All hope of survival was abandoned until the police appeared,” Xinhua news agency quoted one resident saying in Pingyang county, where floodwaters reached 3m.
About 800 people were stranded in Pingyang, the agency said, while the China Daily reported that police had to push through shoulder-deep water to rescue about 300 people stuck in their homes in Cangnan county.
The county, one of the areas hardest hit, suffered power blackouts and municipal water supplies were cut, a local government official told the paper. One person died in Cangnan, the daily said.
So far, the storm has caused more than $261-million in damages, according to the Wenzhou Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
At least seven people were killed on the island of Taiwan, which bore the brunt of the storm’s fury on Monday when Haitang made landfall with winds gusting up to up to 227kph.
More than $81-million in damage was estimated on Taiwan, where farms, fish ponds and rice paddies were flooded. As the torrent continued on Wednesday, authorities issued advisories for the island’s south and east.
Despite the battering in the coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian, however, mainland China appeared to have escaped the worst, and Haitang was downgraded to a tropical storm as it pushed further inland.
A Fujian official said several people were missing in the province but that no casualties had been reported by midday on Wednesday.
While there were few human deaths, more than 32 000 cattle died in Wenzhou city, where 2 600 houses were destroyed, Xinhua news agency said.
East and south-east China are prone to typhoons and have been pummelled by at least 15 over the past 50 years.
But authorities were on high alert after last year’s Typhoon Rananim devastated Zhejiang, killing at least 164 people and causing millions of dollars in damage.
Before Haitang hit on Tuesday night, about one million people had already been evacuated, including about 750 000 in Fujian alone.
Taiwan appeared to have been hit much harder, and some areas in the southern counties of Tainan, Pingtung and Kaohsiung counties were still flooded on Wednesday, the Central Weather Bureau said.
Rescuers had found the bodies of three more victims who drowned, the National Fire Agency said, while a person washed away by flash floods remained missing. Another 31 people were injured in storm-related accidents.
Helicopters had battled strong winds on Tuesday to pick up 11 of the 21 crew members from a ship that partially sank off the southern port of Kaohsiung after losing power during the storm.
Ten were still on board on Wednesday but were safe and refused to leave the ship, the agency said. — AFP
