The threatened coastal areas are sparsely populated, but forecasts indicated the storm's inland track could eventually take it dangerously close to Monterrey, Mexico's third largest city.

Forecasters said Emily would slam ashore early Wednesday near the small Mexican fishing village of La Pesca, 245 kilometers (150 miles) south of the US border. Coastal areas of southern Texas close to the border, were also under a hurricane warning.

The deadly hurricane regained steam Tuesday and could strengthen further during the night, after weakening as it crossed Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned Tuesday that "preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion."

In northeastern Mexico's Tamaulipas state, where La Pesca is located, more than 4,000 people were evacuated, out of a total of 80,000 living in high-risk areas on the Gulf of Mexico coast, according to officials.

Tamaulipas authorities have set up close to 1,000 emergency shelters as Emily barreled toward shore.

In neighboring Texas, residents of Brownsville boarded up windows and stocked up on basic supplies, while hundreds of tourists left South Padre island, which was likely to experience strong winds and pounding rain as the storm makes landfall.

At 2100 GMT Tuesday, the center of Hurricane Emily was 230 kilometersmiles) east-northeast of La Pesca, Mexico, according to the NHC.

It packed sustained winds of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles) per hour. This makes it a category two hurricane, on the Saffir-Simpson scale, but the NHC said it could strengthen and slam ashore as a category three, on a scale that goes up to five.

Emily was at a rare level four when it pounded Mexico's Caribbean coast on Monday, tearing down trees and power lines, after it sent tens of thousands of tourists fleeing Cancun and other popular resorts.

A German man was electrocuted and killed Sunday in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen as he prepared his house for the hurricane.

But the peninsula at the southeastern tip of Mexico escaped comparatively lightly. Authorities estimated damage at about 25 million dollars and said tourist facilities were hardly affected.

The storm was blamed for another nine deaths as it thundered across the Caribbean last week.

Meanwhile, Mexico's state oil company Petroleos de Mexico said it had evacuated 15,530 workers from oil platforms in the Gulf. It also announced the temporary suspension of three-quarters of its daily oil production, or 2.9 million barrels per day.

Mexico, the world's fifth biggest oil producer and the ninth largest crude exporter, exports over 1.8 million barrels per day, virtually all of it to the United States.

On the US side of the Gulf of Mexico, authorities said 132 of 956 manned platforms and rigs were evacuated.

But world oil prices stabilized on Tuesday as Hurricane Emily looked set to pass by without causing too much damage, traders said. New York's contract for light sweet crude for August delivery rose 14 cents to close at 57.46 dollars a barrel.

Emily is the second Atlantic hurricane of the year. It formed just days after Hurricane Dennis roared across the Caribbean and into Florida, leaving at least 62 dead, most of them in Haiti.

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