MEXICO CITY — Hurricane Agatha, the season’s first, headed for a stretch of tourist beaches and fishing towns on Mexico’s southern Pacific coast Monday amid warnings of dangerous storm surge and flooding from heavy rains.
After forming on Sunday, Agatha quickly gained power, and it was predicted to make landfall as a powerful Category 3 hurricane Monday afternoon or evening, the US National Hurricane Center said.
It was moving towards the area near Puerto Escondido and Puerto Angel in the southern state of Oaxaca — a region that includes the laid-back tourist resorts of Huatulco, Mazunte and Zipolite.
The hurricane center said Agatha could “bring an extremely dangerous storm surge and life-threatening winds.”
Late Sunday, Agatha had maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph) — just 1 mph under the threshold for a Category 3, the hurricane centre said. The storm’s centre was about 140 miles (225 kilometres) southwest of Puerto Angel and heading to the northeast at 6 mph (9 kph).
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