Hurricane Felix "potentially catastrophic"
Monday, 03 Sep 2007 16:01
Hurricane Felix seen from space
Travellers have been advised to avoid parts of Central America as countries brace themselves for category five Hurricane Felix.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said people should avoid all travel to Belize, and to the northern tip of Nicaragua, northern coastal areas of Honduras, the eastern coastal regions of Guatemala and southern states of Mexico.
The US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) warns that maximum sustained gusts of 165mph should be expected from Limon in Honduras to the country's border region with Nicaragua.
The storm, now designated "extremely dangerous", has a much smaller wind field, with hurricane-force winds extending only 25 miles from its centre.
But it is described as "potentially catastrophic" and is expected to maintain category four or five status for up to two days.
Despite this a tropical storm warning remains in place for Jamaica and Grand Cayman and the NHC recommends that "interests elsewhere in the western Caribbean Sea should closely monitor" Felix's progress.
Felix is passing in the same west-north-west direction as last month's Hurricane Dean, but is located much further to the south. Dean killed at least 20 people.
Meanwhile, a tropical storm threatens to achieve hurricane status on the Mexican coast of the Pacific.
Henriette is currently seeing maximum gusts of 75mph but a hurricane watch has been imposed as it threatens to develop.
The southern Baja California peninsula is under threat for the next 36 hours, the NHC said.
