MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Hurricane Emily will hover over Mexico for the next three days

Mexican authorities launched a massive evacuation of Caribbean resorts. Two pilots die in evacuation of Mexican oil rigs. Crude oil climbs.

Quintana Roo state Tourism Secretary Gabriela Rodriguez said authorities would begin evacuating 85,000 people along more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) of coast from Holbox Island to Tulum on Saturday, including a stretch known as the Mayan Riviera.

It was the first time in recent memory that such a massive evacuation had been carried out on Mexico's Caribbean coast.

The Mexican government also was preparing shelters that could hold thousands of local residents and tourists. Schools or community centers usually serve as temporary storm shelters, with few conveniences.

Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos started the evacuation of more than 15,000 workers from offshore oil platforms on the Gulf of Mexico.

Emily was expected to hit the Yucatan peninsula late Sunday or early Monday, probably at a point somewhat south of Cancun. From there it could cross over the peninsula, travel across the Gulf and hit land again somewhere near the Mexico-U.S. border.

Tourists and residents evacuated from the Caribbean coast were to be relocated to larger, more storm-resistant hotels or moved inland, some as far away as Valladolid in the neighboring state of Yucatan.

Authorities also ordered the relocation on Sunday morning of 30,000 tourists in Cancun to larger, better-sheltered hotels, where tourists may have to stay in ballrooms and convention centers.

Tourists on the island of Cozumel will be moved to hotels away from the island's shore, about 70 percent of the tourists being relocated are foreigners. An estimated of 18.000 tourists choked the Cancun airport rushed to leave the Caribbean resort.

Some flights have been already canceled. Evacuations began Saturday afternoon from islands off the eastern coast of the Yucatan peninsula as Mexican officials issued a hurricane warning from Chetumal to Cabo Catoche, north of Cancun. About 1,600 people were evacuated from Holbox Island at the peninsula's northeast tip, Quintana Roo state press coordinator Endira Carrillo said.

Pemex planned to pull 3,552 of its own workers and 11,978 private employees from offshore platforms, leaving less than a thousand attendants behind. It was closing 63 wells and halting the production of 480,000 barrels of oil a day, the state company announced in a news release.

Sunny skies and a laid-back atmosphere still prevailed at Cancun, despite the approaching storm.

In Cancun, businesses boarded over and taped windows to protect them from shattering. One store hung a sign that said, "Emily go away."

On its passage trough there Caribbean. Emily's winds ravaged hundreds of homes on the island of Grenada destroyed crops and killed at least five man whose home was buried over landslide. As the storm passed near Jamaica last night , howling wind gust kicked up waves up 8 feet tall en bent palm trees double in Kingston, the capital. Torrential rains drenched part of Jamaica's south coast and spread over the Cayman Islands.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the hurricane could reach Category 5 strength by Sunday (winds of 155 mph (250 kph) .

Crude oil climbs

Crude oil rose, rebounding from its steepest drop this month, on concern Hurricane Emily may veer toward Texas, threatening US rigs and platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and refineries along the coast. The expected path for Emily, now a Category 4 hurricane, takes it to the US-Mexico border on July 20. Prices in New York yesterday fell 3.7 percent, their biggest drop since June 28, as U.S. output in the Gulf returned to within 4 percentage points of normal levels in the aftermath of earlier storms.

??Any deviation toward Texas as opposed to Mexico will have an effect on prices,'' said Tony Machacek, a broker at Bache Financial Ltd. in London. ??The market will be very concerned about the path of the hurricane.''

Crude oil for August delivery climbed as much as 85 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $58.65 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where it was up 51 cents at 11:42 a.m. London time. The price has gained 42 percent from a year ago. Oil surged to a record $62.10 on July 7, partly on concern the previous storm, Hurricane Dennis, would disrupt US supplies. Hurricane Emily, which blew off roofs and caused severe water damage on the island of Grenada, strengthened as it moved through the eastern Caribbean Sea.

Two pilots die in evacuation of Mexican oil rigs

At least two pilots from a private aviation firm were killed during the evacuation of offshore oil platforms in southern Mexico's Campeche Sound ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Emily.

"A helicopter belonging to the Helivan company, with registration XA-VVD, fell into the sea" during the evacuation Saturday night, killing the crew, Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex said.

"Pemex deeply regrets the loss of the life of the pilot and co-pilot of the aircraft, who were the only people aboard, as a result of this accident," the company said in a statement.

Oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said it has evacuated 15,530 workers staff from its oil rigs, closed 63 wells and halted the production of 480,000 barrels of oil per day in the Gulf of Mexico.