Hurricane Delta makes landfall in the Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 2 storm

Hurricane Delta has reached the Mexican coast this morning with maximum sustained winds of 165 kilometers per hour and gusts of 205 kilometers per hour, according to the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC, for its acronym in English).

The cyclone is 35 kilometers south of Cancun.

"It will cause intense to torrential rains in the Yucatan peninsula and will cause strong winds with gusts of 150 to 240 kilometers per hour, waves of 5 to 9 meters high," reported the National Meteorological Service of Mexico in its most recent bulletin.

The latest NHC report warns that "weather conditions are deteriorating rapidly on the northeast coast of the Yucatan Peninsula with a potentially deadly storm surge and strong winds."

Since Tuesday, the authorities of the states of Quintana Roo and Yucatán have issued various alerts for the population to seek shelter, and have set up hundreds of shelters throughout the coastal cities of the peninsula.

40,900 tourists remain in the resorts of the Riviera Maya and Cancun, and another 35,000 were evacuated, as reported by Carlos Orvañanos, communication coordinator of the state government of Quintana Roo.

The authorities of Quintana Roo have reported the transfer of these tourists due to the impact of the hurricane, of which 85% are Mexican and the rest foreigners, especially Americans, reports AFP.

“We were at 35% of our capacity.

To prevent the spread of covid-19, the same measures have been taken in the shelters as in hotels, such as the use of gel, face masks ”, said Roberto Cintrón, president of the Cancun Hotel Association, one of the main tourist destinations of the Mexican Caribbean.

The hurricane has the authorities of Mexico in suspense.

The governor of the State of Quintana Roo, Carlos Joaquín González, has issued the red alert in the northern part of the territory and has announced the start of the evacuation in the hotel areas of Puerto Morelos, Cancun and on the island of Holbox.

Delta is located 130 kilometers east-southeast of Cozumel and 175 kilometers southeast of Cancun and is moving at 26 kilometers per hour to the west northwest;

Its effects have already begun to be felt on the island of Cozumel and in much of the Yucatan Peninsula.

"The entire State will suffer the consequences of the storm," Governor González said during a press conference this Tuesday afternoon, in which he also announced that he expects the hurricane to have finished its passage through the State on Wednesday afternoon. late.

Both Yucatán and Quintana Roo experience the arrival of Delta after spending the weekend under the lash of tropical storm Gamma, which left at least six people dead and some 600,000 affected by floods throughout southern Mexico.

The rains forced more than 3,000 people to leave their homes in the states of Veracruz, Chiapas and Tabasco, according to the Mexican Ministry of the Interior.

Delta is the 26th named storm in an unusually active hurricane season in the Atlantic.

The hurricane is the 10th tropical cyclone of the season, breaking the mark of nine that did so in 2016. According to NHC monitoring, the hurricane would hit the southern United States between Thursday night and Friday morning in a still indeterminate point of the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama.