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Hurricane Wilma tears into Mexican resorts
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-22 08:55

Hurricane Wilma tore into Mexico's resort-studded Mayan Riviera on Friday with torrential rains and shrieking winds, filling the streets with water, shattered glass and debris as thousands of stranded tourists hunkered down in hotel ballrooms and emergency shelters.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Wilma officially made landfall about 3:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. EDT), with the center of the storm's eye hitting the island of Cozumel, a popular cruise-ship stop.

The fearsome Category 4 storm, which killed 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica, was expected to pummel the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula for two days, sparking fears of catastrophic damage. It is forecast to sideswipe Cuba before bearing down on Florida on Monday.

A man tries to save some of his belongings as flood waters begin to rise at a low income neighborhood during the passing of Hurricane Wilma in Playa del Carmen, Mexico on Friday Oct. 21, 2005.
A man tries to save some of his belongings as flood waters begin to rise at a low income neighborhood during the passing of Hurricane Wilma in Playa del Carmen, Mexico on Friday Oct. 21, 2005.[AP]
"Tin roofing is flying through the air everywhere. Palm trees are falling down. Signs are in the air and cables are snapping," Julio Torres told The Associated Press by telephone from the Red Cross office in Cozumel.

"Not even emergency vehicles have been able to go out on the streets, because the winds are too strong."

The wind bent palm trees and the surf washed away tiki huts on hotel beaches. Power was cut early Friday to most parts of Cancun — a standard safety precaution.

Shop windows were shattered, cars were crushed under fallen trees and pay phones jutted from waist-deep floodwaters in the famed hotel zone.

Officials evacuated loaded more than 1,000 people into buses and vans after a downtown cultural center being used as a temporary shelter suddenly became uninhabitable, Cancun Red Cross director Ricardo Portugal said without elaborating.
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