Hurricane Rick heads for landfall on Mexico's southern coast

MEXICO CITY — A somewhat strengthened and compact Hurricane Rick closed successful connected Mexico’s confederate Pacific coast, heading toward a predicted landfall precocious Monday greeting amid warnings of imaginable flash floods successful the coastal mountains.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Rick had maximum sustained winds of 90 miles per hr (150 kph) precocious Sunday and was expected to spell ashore determination connected the seashore betwixt the edifice of Zihuatanejo and the seaport of Lazaro Cardenas. It was centered astir 60 miles (100 kilometers) southbound of Zihuatanejo and moving northbound astatine 6 mph (9 kph).

Forecasters said the tempest was comparatively compact, with hurricane unit winds extending retired lone 25 miles from the eye, but they said its winds and rainfall could inactive origin problems successful astir the larger edifice of Acapulco to the east.

The halfway warned that Rick could nutrient flash floods and mudslides successful the mountainous terrain connected the coast.

“During its transition implicit land, it volition origin aggravated to torrential rains and imaginable mudslides and flooding, arsenic good arsenic rising levels successful streams and rivers, successful the states of Guerrero, Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco,” Mexico’s National Water Commission said successful a statement.

Authorities successful Lazaro Cardenas said they had opened six exigency shelters for radical who mightiness privation to permission low-lying areas. Zihuatanejo opened a structure astatine the municipal auditorium.

The authorities of Guerrero, wherever Zihuatanejo and Acapulco are located, said rains and upwind had already knocked implicit immoderate trees and damaged a road.