Thousands flee Hurricane Felix in Central America

TEGUCIGALPA, Sept 4 (Reuters) Thousands of people fled Central America's Caribbean coast on Monday to escape the powerful winds and torrential rains of Hurricane Felix, but many others were left to ride out the approaching storm.

The highly dangerous Category 4 hurricane, due to make landfall on Tuesday morning, charged toward Nicaragua and Honduras with top sustained winds of 135 mph (215 kph), provoking fears of a repeat of Hurricane Mitch, which killed some 10,000 people in Central America in 1998.

''There could be serious damage and material, like human, losses, if people do not take precautionary measures,'' Honduran President Manuel Zelaya warned.

Up to 40,000 Hondurans were evacuated to hurricane shelters, officials said.

But some 15,000 people were unable to find transportation and would face the storm in their homes. ''They couldn't be evacuated because there is no fuel to take them to safe areas,'' Carolina Echeverria, a deputy from Cabo Gracias a Dios on the border with Nicaragua, where Felix was headed.

Hundreds of tourists were flown to the Honduran mainland from beach and diving resorts on the Bay Islands, and police reported long lines at supermarkets and gas stations in coastal cities as residents stocked up on food, water and fuel.

Emergency workers sailed thousands of Miskito Indians out of sparsely populated, coastal areas near the border, dotted with lagoons and crocodile-infested rivers. The Miskitos, who traditionally fish for turtles, formed a British protectorate until the 19th century. More than 35,000 live in Honduras, and over 100,000 in Nicaragua.

Felix, the second hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic season, had been a top-ranked Category 5 storm like Hurricane Dean, which killed 27 people in the Caribbean and Mexico in August.

At 0530 IST, the US National Hurricane center said Felix was about 325 km east of Cabo Gracias a Dios and moving west at 30 kph.

''We are faced with a very serious threat to lives and property.

The most important thing is that people pay heed to the call for evacuation so that we don't have to count bodies later,'' said civil protection head Marco Burgos.

A Category 4 is a major hurricane, capable of extensive damage and heavy flooding. Hurricane Katrina, one of the most devastating natural disasters in US history, was a Category 3 when it made landfall near New Orleans in 2005.

Category 5 hurricanes have been rare. But there were four in the 2005 season. More this year could fan claims that global warming leads to stronger tropical cyclones.

RECORD GROWTH Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Web site weatherunderground.com, said Felix set a speed record by taking just 51 hours to grow from a tropical depression to the Category 5 hurricane it became on Sunday.

London coffee futures ended higher, fueled by speculative buying on concern Felix might damage arabica coffee growing areas in Central America.

In Nicaragua, farmers feared Felix could cause an surge in ''black beans,'' which render coffee unexportable, and leech nutrients from the soil, as Mitch did. ''This brings back very difficult memories,'' Matagalpa coffee farmer Julio Solorzano said.

Felix was expected to smack into Honduras, hit southern Belize and move through Guatemala's Peten jungle region and into Mexico.

Whether it would re-emerge over the Bay of Campeche, home of Mexico's major offshore oil fields, and strengthen again in the Gulf of Mexico was unclear.

US energy firms and Mexican oil monopoly Pemex -- skittish since hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 toppled rigs, cut pipelines and flooded refineries -- were monitoring Felix. But companies said they had not yet evacuated platforms in the Gulf, where a third of US domestic crude and 70 per cent of Mexican crude is produced.

Also yesterday, Tropical Storm Henriette headed across the eastern Pacific toward Mexico's Baja California peninsula at near hurricane strength after killing six people in the resort city of Acapulco during the weekend.

REUTERS BJR KN0717