Baku-APA. Hurricane Patricia headed toward southwestern Mexico Friday as a monster Category 5 storm, the strongest ever in the Western Hemisphere that forecasters said could make a "potentially catastrophic landfall" later in the day, APA reports quoting Associated Press.
Residents of a stretch of Mexico's Pacific Coast dotted with resorts and fishing villages on Thursday had already boarded up homes and bought supplies ahead of Patricia's arrival. Some evacuations were reported in Puerto Vallarta, but few people were seen going to the shelters.
With maximum sustained winds near 200 mph (325 kph), Patricia is the strongest storm ever recorded in the eastern Pacific or in the Atlantic, said Dave Roberts, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
Patricia's power was comparable to that of Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,300 dead or missing in the Philippines two years ago, according to the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization. More than 4 million people were displaced and over 1 million houses were destroyed or damaged in 44 provinces in the central Visayas region, a large cluster of islands.
In Mexico, officials declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco states that contain the bustling port of Manzanillo and the posh resort of Puerto Vallarta. The governor of Colima state ordered schools closed on Friday, when the storm was forecast to make what the Hurricane Center called a "potentially catastrophic landfall."
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