Hurricane Dean slams into Mexico

CANCUN (AFP) - Hurricane Dean on Tuesday slammed into the Caribbean coast of Mexico with "potentially catastrophic" category-five force, lashing the Yucatan Peninsula with monstrous winds and pounding rains.

Mexico evacuated resorts and oil rigs as the killer storm whipped up maximum sustained winds of 270 kilometers (165 miles) per hour with higher gusts, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

The eye of the storm "made landfall on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula near Costa Maya or Majahual around 3:30 am (0830 GMT) ... about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east-northeast of Chetumal, Mexico," it said.

Storm surge flooding and high tides of "12 to 18 feet (four to six meters) above normal tide levels along with large and dangerous battering waves" were possible in the areas near and to the north of landfall.

Tourist resorts were abandoned and most residents had fled for safer ground by the time the outer bands of the storm began bearing down late Monday with heavy rains and high winds.

Authorities nonetheless heaved a sigh of relief as forecasters said Cancun and other popular resorts along Mexico's Caribbean coast would likely be spared a direct hit.

Dean struck land further south, on the border with Belize near Chetumal, 300 kilometers (186 miles) away from the popular tourist resort of Cancun.

Authorities also deployed about 1,000 police officers to prevent the type of looting that followed the devastation wrought by Wilma, a category five hurricane that killed 10 people and caused millions of dollars in damage in Cancun two years ago.

The Yucatan Peninsula's eastern coastline was placed under a hurricane warning, as were all the coastal areas and islands of neighboring Belize, a central American country popular with divers for its barrier reef.

State-run Petroleos de Mexico (PEMEX) said it had evacuated and shut down all its offshore oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico.

While rigs on the US side of the Gulf did not appear directly threatened, 10 of the 834 manned production platforms and 24 of the 101 rigs were evacuated, according to the government's Mineral Management Service.

Forecasters said the storm was expected to lose some of its strength as it crossed the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday, but could regain major hurricane status as it barreled over the warm Gulf of Mexico waters on the way to a second landfall later Wednesday in northern Mexico.

Only 28 Atlantic hurricanes are known to have reached the intensity of category five since record keeping started in 1886.

The storm has already killed at least nine people across the Caribbean.

World oil prices dropped on Tuesday as forecasters indicated the hurricane appeared likely to spare energy facilities in the United States, the world's biggest consumer of crude.

In Jamaica, where one man died when his house caved in on him, residents began a massive clean-up one day after Dean toppled trees and power lines and flooded low-lying areas.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller announced security forces would be granted wider powers following reports of looting across the island that remained largely without power on Monday.

But Jamaica was spared the worst of Dean's massive punch as the storm's powerful inner wall brushed just past the island.

Dean earlier swirled past Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, lashing it with heavy rain and gale-force winds and leaving at least four people dead.

Two people were also killed in the French territory of Martinique and another two died in the Dominican Republic, while thousands of people across the region fled their homes.