Two persons died while evacuating an oil platform when their helicopter crashed.

Forecasters said the "extremely dangerous" category four storm, packing winds near 230 kilometers (145 miles) per hour, would reach the peninsula late Sunday or early Monday.

"Fluctuations in intensity are common in major hurricanes, but little overall change in strength is expected before Emily makes landfall," the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

Emily is the second major storm to hit the region in two weeks following Hurricane Dennis, which left at least 62 dead, mostly in Haiti.

Officials in the peninsula states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan issued emergency alerts Saturday and advisories to evacuate tourist resorts and other vulnerable coastal areas in advance of the storm.

"About 23,000 tourists, vacationing largely in Cancun and the Mayan Riviera, will be taken to shelters," said a statement by Quintana Roo, the state where Cancun is located.

About 30,000 of the 80,000 tourists in the area had already cut short their vacations, officials said. Some 340 flights were scheduled at the Cancun airport for Saturday and Sunday to evacuate visitors to Canada, the United States and Europe.

"More than 46,000 people have abandoned Quintana Roo," the state health secretariat said.

Mexican President Vicente Fox said the armed forces started deploying truckloads of emergency supplies to threatened areas.

Meanwhile, the Caribbean's Cayman Islands felt the lash of the powerful storm early Sunday after it roared past densely populated Jamaica.

At 2100 GMT Sunday, Emily's center was about 215 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Cozumel, Mexico and was traveling at about 32 kilometersmiles) per hour.

Jamaica suspended hurricane warnings for the island. The eye of the storm passed about 160 kilometers south of Jamaica on Saturday, apparently sparing it from major damage.

"I'm grateful," Kingston Mayor Desmond McKenzie said. "It doesn't seem as bad as we expected."

Emily roared past Jamaica packing intense winds and rains that officials feared would trigger flooding and mudslides.

Government offices and both international airports on the tourism-dependent island of 2.7 million people were temporarily closed.

Emily also battered Haiti with torrential rains, but no deaths were reported. A separated storm caused floods there Friday, killing six people. Less than two weeks ago, Hurricane Dennis killed at least 40 people in the Americas' poorest nation.

On Thursday, Emily whacked Grenada, killing one man when a mudslide destroyed his home, the National Disaster Management Agency there reported.

After crossing Yucatan, the hurricane will likely cross the Gulf of Mexico to make landfall near the Mexican city of Matamoros and neighboring Brownsville in the US state of Texas early Wednesday, according to the Miami hurricane center.

State oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said it evacuated 15,530 workers from oil platforms in Gulf of Mexico, although a helicopter crashed due to high winds.

"The pilot and co-pilot of the helicopter died, and were the only persons aboard," Pemex said.

Emily's projected track over the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico caused crude prices to rebound on global markets Friday.

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