(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-08-21 10:19

That took the death toll from Dean to eleven. Haiti was worst hit with four people dead there.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon was to cut short a visit to Canada, where he met President George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to return home on Tuesday to oversee the emergency effort.

The US space shuttle Endeavour is to return to Earth from the International Space Station a day early in case the storm forces NASA to evacuate its Houston center.

Some 70,000 tourists have fled Cancun and the nearby area in recent days but the resort, whose five-star hotels were gutted by ferocious wind and waves in 2005, was not forecast to take a major hit this time around.

Poor local residents with badly built homes are often the worst hit by hurricanes in Mexico.

"Let's see if the house can stand it. If not, we'll go to the shelter," said Luisa Villafana, 27, an office cleaner who shares a thatched-roof home with eight other people near the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto.

Category 5 hurricanes are rare but in 2005 there were four, including Katrina which devastated New Orleans. The number of high power storms is reinforcing research that suggests global warming may increase the strength of tropical cyclones.

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