Agatha launches hurricane season, a region on alert
Hurricane Agatha, the first of the season on Mexico’s Pacific coast, made landfall Monday as a Category 2 cyclone in a tourist region that has been placed on medium alert.
City workers clear branches before Hurricane Agatha lands in Huatulco, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, on May 30, 2022.
AFP
Accompanied by winds of 165 km / h, Agatha, which moves at a speed of 13 km / h, is the “strongest hurricane” ever recorded on the Pacific coast of Mexico in May since 1949, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
The NHC has classified Agatha category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale which has 5 gradations. “Agatha is expected to weaken later in the night and dissipate over southeastern Mexico in the last hours of Tuesday,” the same source added.
Agatha made landfall around 4:00 p.m. (11:00 p.m. in Switzerland) on the coast of the state of Oaxaca (west), which attracts many surfers. Some 5,240 tourists have been identified in the risk zone, between the resorts of Puerto Escondido and Huatulco, according to local authorities. The government of Oaxaca claims to be able to shelter 26,800 people in 203 temporary shelters. “The hostels are open. People are coming,” said Roberto Castillo of Huatulco Civil Protection.
Menace
“It is a threat to the state of Oaxaca,” said the local civil protection which declared the yellow alert (median). Authorities have closed ports to shipping in these areas. Airlines have canceled flights since Sunday evening to Huatulco.
Waves as high as six meters are forecast for Oaxaca and the neighboring states of Guerrero and Chiapas, according to Mexico’s weather service (SMN).
The hurricane will cause heavy rains in the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, and in the neighboring states of Guerrero and Tabasco (southeast), the SMN had indicated. “Rainfall could cause landslides, increased river levels as well as flooding,” the SMN warned.
Mexico is hit by tropical cyclones on its Pacific and Atlantic coasts every year, usually between May and November.
Posted today at 01:58
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