Mexico’s tourist hubs hit by Tropical Storm Franklin

  • 7 years ago
TROPICAL STORM FRANKLIN churned toward the tourist hubs along Mexico's Caribbean coast yesterday, and is expected to strike the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula just south of major resorts, according to the US National Hurricane Centre.Heavy rainfall and flash flooding is possible across the Yucatan and parts of Belize.

Franklin, which formed on Sunday, is located 75 miles east of Chetumal, the Mexican city near the country's border with Belize, and was closing in on making landfall at a speed of 14 miles per hour. Officials from five towns along the coast in Quintana Roo state closed schools for yesterday and today, and the Chetumal airport was also shut yesterday afternoon.

Franklin is blowing maximum sustained winds of 60 mph, and the centre of the storm is expected to make landfall, cross the peninsula and then reach the Bay of Campeche late today on the other side, the Miami-based NHC said in an advisory.

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