CANCUN, Mexico: Hurricane Grace grounded flights and forced tourists to spend the night in shelters on part of Mexico’s Caribbean coastline before weakening to a tropical storm on Thursday (Aug 19) as it moved inland.
Grace made landfall before dawn as a Category One hurricane – the lowest on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale – on the Yucatan Peninsula near the town of Tulum, famed for its Mayan temples.
It lost strength as it churned across the peninsula and was clocking maximum sustained winds of 100km per hour at 1500 GMT, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said.
On Wednesday, as the hurricane approached Mexico, more than 100 flights to or from the major resort of Cancun were cancelled, and tourists in Tulum were told to leave their hotel rooms.
In total, more than 300 people were evacuated and the storm passed the Riviera Maya coastline without any loss of life, said Carlos Joaquin, governor of the southeastern state of Quintana Roo.
Cancun airport was reopened on Thursday but ports remained closed, Joaquin said on Twitter.
BLACKOUTS, MINOR DAMAGE
Electricity was cut off, affecting almost 150,000 people, but as soon as the storm passes, repairs will be carried out to restore supply, Joaquin said.
Cancun’s hotel zone was largely deserted at dawn as intense wind and rain caused some damage to structures on the beach, which was pounded by strong waves.
