Tropical Storm Roslyn made landfall in northwestern Mexico on Sunday as a Category 3 hurricane, killing at least two people. This is the first hurricane to reach this strength in the Pacific Ocean this season. It made landfall near Santa Cruz (Nayarid state) around 1:20 pm (Swiss time). In the evening it dissolves.
“We found one person dead in Rosamorada,” Nayarit’s state security secretary told state television. An 80-year-old man died after a heavy structure collapsed on his home on McScalditon Island, the Department of Civil Defense and Fire said.
As of 2 a.m. Monday, Roslyn was 95 km from the city of Dorian in northern Mexico, with sustained winds of 55 km/h. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in the US, the storm is expected to dissipate in the evening.
Roslin strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane within hours of Friday, putting officials and residents in the states of Nayarit and Jalisco on alert. A hurricane with a category greater than 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale (out of 5) is considered a potentially catastrophic “major” event.
Floods, evacuees,
Property damage, some flooding, downed trees and landslides were reported by civil defense officials in the states of Nayarit and Jalisco (west), which were hit hardest by the typhoon. Nayarit’s civil defense director pointed out that the flooding “does not represent such a danger”.
“It was a little scary. Water started coming into our house and we had to take our children out and put them on high ground […] We were in the rain for about three hours and my house was destroyed,” Eric Newcomer, an American who has lived in Puerto Vallarta for three months, told AFP.
In Sayulita, Nayarit, some sectors were affected as the stream flooded and buried houses. Business activities were halted by late afternoon as more than a thousand people living in danger zones left their homes to join shelters or relatives’ homes.
Tropical cyclones strike Mexico on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts each year, usually between May and November.
“Avid gamer. Social media geek. Proud troublemaker. Thinker. Travel fan. Problem solver.”