Hurricane Norma, now Category 2, nears west Mexico coast

Hurricane Norma is expected to slam into Mexico's northwestern coast within hours, bringing "life-threatening" winds, flooding and a dangerous sea surge, authorities warned Saturday.

The storm, still powerful though downgraded overnight from Category 3 to Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, was headed toward a part of Mexico's Baja California coast popular with tourists.

As of late morning, it was 65 kilometers (40 miles) west-southwest of the Cabo San Lucas resort town, whose 200,000 inhabitants were scrambling to make last-minute preparations.

Norma was moving northward at 15 kilometers (9 miles) per hour, packing wind gusts of up to 175 kph, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported at 12H00 GMT.

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Though weakened since Thursday, the storm still has the ability to cause "flash and urban flooding, along with mudslides in areas of higher terrain," the NHC said.

Hotel employees in Cabo San Lucas have urged guests to stay indoors until authorities give the all-clear, Gustavo Matamoros, a hotel worker, told AFP.

Local authorities say about 60,000 tourists are staying in the area, most of them international ones.

"Extraordinarily heavy rainfall" could cause flooding and landslides in the coastal states of Sinaloa and Nayarit, Mexico's National Meteorological Service said.

It predicted coastal swells of up to nine meters (30 feet).

Two people died last week when Hurricane Lidia struck the western states of Jalisco and Nayarit.

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