Hurricane Wilma has killed at least 13 people in the Caribbean and forced evacuation of 50,000 from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Thursday before heading to Florida.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, said Wilma remained a Category 4 hurricane with powerful winds of 230 kph, and meteorologists forecast it would be gaining force in the coming hours.

If Wilma touches down on the Yucatan Peninsula, it is expected to bring heavy downpours to the beach resorts and western Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico, experts said.

Authorities had ordered evacuation of residents, mainly from the popular resort of Cancun and other towns in the eastern coast of Quintana Roo state.

Some 27,000 tourists from beach hotels and 30,000 residents in Mujeres Island, Puerto Juarez, Holbox, Arenas, Contoy, Punta Allen islets and Tulum coast had been evacuated on Thursday.

The National Water Commission said one of the two scenarios under consideration was that the hurricane "would be directly hitting Cancun" on Friday morning.

Another projection indicated that Wilma would spin off south of the hurricane-weary Florida, the United States.

Wilma was moving northwest at about 8 kph with a 700 km diameter, 100 km more than the deadly Katrina, which killed over 1,200 people in the US Gulf in August, said Alberto Hernandez, spokesman of the National Meteorological Service.

According to reports from Havana, Cuba, Wilma hit some parts of the three eastern provinces of the country, forcing more than 5,200 people to seek shelters.

Since Wednesday tourists had been advised to leave south Florida and Mexico's Mujeres Island and authorities planned to evacuate people in lowlands ranging over Cuba, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and Cayman Islands.

Source: Xinhua