The Mexican authorities on Monday declared a red alert, the nation's highest danger rating, in the eastern Mexico state of Quintana Roo, on Mexico's Caribbean coast, due to Hurricane Dean which is set to make landfall within hours.

 

Lightning streaks across Cancun's night sky during a thunderstorm on August 19, 2007. Hurricane Dean is due to make landfall on the Yucatan peninsula in about two days' time.

 

The state's governor, Felix Gonzalez Cato, told a Monday press conference municipalities most affected are Othon P. Blanco, Jose Maria Morelos, Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Solidaridad, location of Mexican tourist area Playa del Carmen.

 

Cancun, a popular tourist spot in Mexico which was hit by a hurricane in 2006, is not on the red alert list this year. Other tourist areas that are not on the list are Cozumel and Mujeres Islands, and the town of Lazaro Cardenas.

 

Dean is the first hurricane of the 2007 season. Mexico's National Civil Protection Service said on Monday that it is currently 560 kilometers south-south east of Cozumel and 590 southeast of Cancun.

 

Dean might well make land fall as a category-five hurricane, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, with more than 249 kph, the body said.

 

Mexico's National Meteorological Service (SMN) that Dean is heading south, and could hit somewhere between Tulum Chetumal, Quintana Roo's state capital. 

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2007)