Hurricane Rick downgraded to tropical storm

Oct 20, 2009, 6:16 GMT

   Mexico City - Rick, once a powerful category-five hurricane, weakened into a tropical storm as it approached the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, where it had already claimed one life.

   The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Rick's maximum sustained winds had weakened to 110 kilometres per hour by late Monday and the storm was expected to continue to lose strength as it passes near the southern tip of the Mexican peninsula late Tuesday or early Wednesday and approach the Mexican mainland Wednesday.

   A large wave caused by the storm carried a 38-year-old Mexican man out to sea Sunday, authorities said. The man had been standing with his family on the rocks by Los Cabos harbour in San Jose del Cabo, municipal civil protection inspector Wenceslao Cesena said.

   'The tide swept over them in the area by the breakwater in the harbour, a retaining wall made up by rocks that protects the boats, and although one speedboat went to their rescue, the man died,' Cesena said by telephone.

   The National Hurricane Center said that at 8 pm (0300 GMT Tuesday), the eye of the storm was located 465 kilometres south-south-west of Cabo San Lucas, which along with San Jose del Cabo form a popular tourist getaway on Baja's southern tip. Rick was moving north at 13 kph.

   Meteorologists warned the storm would spawn heavy rains that could cause flooding and mudslides and would produce large swells.

   Rick was the seventh hurricane of the season in the Pacific, only one of which has made landfall. In late August, Hurricane Jimena caused flooding on Baja.