Tropical storm Earl lashes Belize with wind, rain, heads for Mexico

Tropical storm Earl whipped Belize and Mexico's Caribbean coast with wind and heavy rain, battering cars, disrupting transportation and forcing hundreds of people into shelters as it moved through Guatemala toward southeastern Mexico on Thursday.

Some flights from Mexico City to the Mexican seaside resort of Chetumal were canceled because of Earl, which smashed car windows in Belize City, downed trees and sparked flooding in parts of the coastline after moving inland.

"It was a whole lot scarier than I thought," said Philip Gray, a church member from Birmingham, Alabama, staying in Belize City. "The wind was very, very strong, we saw the air conditioners on the roof coming apart ... so very dangerous."

Earl had been a hurricane overnight, but weakened as dawn broke and Mexico's government discontinued storm warnings, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said early on Thursday.

At 1200 GMT Earl had maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour (105 km per hour), churning about 90 miles (145 km) west of Belize City, the NHC said.

Late Wednesday, over 1,000 people were in shelters in Belize City, according to Philip Willoughby, who is in charge of the city's emergency management. Dozens of people were also evacuated in Honduras on Wednesday, the government said.

Some 35 families were evacuated from the southern part of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, chiefly in Banco Chinchorro, an atoll off the coast from Chetumal, Pedro Santos, a local emergency services official, said by telephone.

Mexican airline Interjet said on Twitter it had canceled six flights to and from Chetumal on Wednesday and Thursday.

As it moves west, Earl is expected to weaken to a tropical depression later Thursday or by Friday morning, the NHC said.

Mexican national oil company Pemex said Wednesday night it was monitoring Earl but had not evacuated workers at oil platforms that are concentrated in the southern Gulf of Mexico.

Earl, the fifth named storm of the 2016 season, was expected to bring 8 to 12 inches (20-30 cm) of rain in parts of Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico's Yucatan peninsula through Friday morning, the Miami-based NHC said in a statement.