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Hurricane Zeta heading to US Gulf Coast

Laura GottesdienerAAP
Hurricane Zeta is heading towards beach resorts on Mexico's Caribbean coast.
Camera IconHurricane Zeta is heading towards beach resorts on Mexico's Caribbean coast.

Storm Zeta has strengthened into a hurricane and churned towards beach resorts on Mexico's Caribbean coast, which it is expected to rake with strong winds and heavy rain before heading towards oil-producing areas of the southern United States.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Zeta was blowing winds of some 130km/h off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, home to popular tourist getaways such as Cancun, Tulum and Playa del Carmen.

Zeta, a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale is not expected to strengthen much more before ploughing across the peninsula, which is still recovering from the ravages of Hurricane Delta earlier this month.

By early afternoon, Zeta was about 170km southeast of the island of Cozumel, where a hurricane warning is in effect, the Miami-based NHC said.

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The alert also applies to nearby areas along the Yucatan peninsula, including Tulum.

Zeta is expected dump heavy rainfall across the Yucatan, the Cayman Islands, and parts of Cuba on Tuesday, triggering possible flash flooding in urban areas.

The hurricane is expected to reach the US Gulf coast by Wednesday, where it could disrupt oil production.

Oil producer BP on Monday said it has begun to shut-in production at its Gulf of Mexico platforms and assets ahead of Zeta's arrival, after starting a staff evacuation on Sunday.

The company added that its four mobile offshore drilling units are also in the process of securing their wells to safely weather the storm.

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