(Updates with authorities warnings)
MEXICO CITY, Oct 20 (Reuters) – Hurricane Norma gained strength on Friday in the waters of the Mexican Pacific and was heading towards the Baja California peninsula, where authorities called on the population to take precautions while waiting for it to make landfall on Saturday .
After weakening slightly during the day, the US National Hurricane Center said Norma had again reached Category 3 strength, with maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometers per hour (km/h), as it moved northward. -northwest at 15 km/h.
Norma was located 235 kilometers south of the tourist center Cabo San Lucas, in the state of Baja California Sur, where the popular destination San José del Cabo is also located.
“It is a very strong hurricane,” the state governor, Víctor Manuel Castro, said in a press conference, and called on the population to take precautions.
Castro asked bars, clubs and other businesses to close their doors on Friday night and for people to stay home. He added that public transportation will stop working at 9 p.m. to allow workers to return home.
Shelters with a total capacity for 10,000 people have been set up, he added.
Local authorities said that Norma could make landfall on Saturday evening, so they maintained a “prevention zone” for possible hurricane effects between the towns of Todos Santos and Los Barriles, in the state of Baja California Sur, and a “zone “surveillance” on the Marías Islands, in Nayarit.
The storm is expected to cross the southern tip of the peninsula on Saturday and reach the Mexican coast again on Sunday.
Last week, heavy rains and winds from powerful Hurricane Lidia left one person dead and several people affected on the western coast of Mexico. (Reporting by Noé Torres and Sarah Morland)
Source: Ambito
