CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico: Hurricane Marie was pounding heavy waves into Mexico’s Pacific coast yesterday, where three fishermen went missing after their boat capsized.
The eighth hurricane of the eastern Pacific season also damaged the property of some 10,000 families in the southern state of Oaxaca, officials said.
Marie, expected to reach southern California today, was headed up the coast of the Baja California Peninsula when it sank the fishing boat.
“Unfortunately, we have three missing fishermen,” said Wenceslao Petit, the director of civil protection in the tourist hub of Los Cabos.
The navy went to the rescue of the Tio Chori, which went out to sea with seven fisherman aboard. The boat overturned after being rammed by heavy waves caused by the storm, but four of the fishermen were able to swim to shore.
A ground and air search was underway for the three still missing.
The civil protection agency declared a state of emergency in the Los Cabos region.
The government of Oaxaca, one of the country’s poorest states, declared an emergency in ten municipalities home to the 10,000 families affected by the storm.
Area highways were damaged and landslides blocked travel in rural areas, said Felipe Reyna Romero, the state’s civil protection director.
Rivers had overflown and homes flooded, he added.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said “some weakening is forecast during the next 48 hours ... but Marie is expected to remain a major hurricane through early Tuesday.”
The hurricane briefly hit category five, the most powerful storm rating on the Saffir-Simpson scale, before slightly losing steam.
The NHC said the eye of Marie was “very near” Clarion Island, more than 700 kilometers off the Mexican mainland.
The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 230 kilometers per hour and moving northwest at 13 miles per hour according to the latest bulletin from US forecasters.
AFP
