Hurricane Wilma pounds Mexico's Yucatan

Hurricane Wilma relentlessly pounded Mexico's Caribbean coast on Saturday, destroying homes and flooding beach resorts as it meandered slowly over the Yucatan peninsula.
Winds of 120 miles an hour (195 kph) knocked over houses, upturned trees and kept thousands of tourists in cramped shelters.
The storm lost a bit of its punch - it was downgraded to a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale - but its winds and rains were still powerful enough to cause massive damage and threaten lives. Emergency forces reported no deaths so far.
Metal sheets flew off the roofs of homes in the beach resort of Playa del Carmen and spun dangerously through the streets.
At least five flimsy homes had collapsed in Mexico's Playa del Carmen but their residents were among the tens of thousands who had already fled to damp shelters.
Wilma was still dumping torrential rain over a wide chunk of the Yucatan peninsula whose resorts are famous for turquoise seas and white sand. It was just 9 miles (15 km) from Cancun early Saturday and was drifting northward.
The stalled storm has battered Playa del Carmen, Cancun and diving center Cozumel for the past 36 hours and was due to hang over the area until at least Saturday night.
Wilma dumped 23 inches (59 cm) of rain on Friday on Isla Mujeres island, an unprecedented downpour for Mexico.
All along Mexico's "Maya Riviera," thousands of stranded tourists huddled nervously in dank, sweaty gymnasiums and schools as the flimsy wooden beach cabins where many had been staying took a battering.
Mudslides caused by rains from Wilma killed 10 people in Haiti earlier this week and Cuba was reeling as the storm drenched the west of the island and unleashed tornadoes.
Cuba evacuated 368,000 people from low-lying areas as it braced for coastal storm surges and floods.
Wilma was expected to head off into the Gulf of Mexico once it has finished battering Yucatan and could hit heavily populated southern Florida as early as Sunday.
While forecasters expect it to weaken by that time, authorities in the Florida Keys ordered the mandatory evacuation of the islands 80,000 residents from noon on Saturday. Tourists had already been evacuated.