WILMA's FURY ; # Hurricane Batters Mexico # Scots Student is Missing #1000sflee140mph Winds
Posted on: Sunday, 23 October 2005, 06:00 CDT
FEARS for a Scot missing in hurricane-lashed Mexico were mounting last night.
Natalie Roscoe, 20, has not contacted her distraught family for days. The student is on holiday in Cancun, which has been devastated by Hurricane Wilma.
Thirteen people have been killed by the category 4 storm - which saw winds of 140mph - and around 30,000 tourists have been evacuated.
Yesterday, almost 516,000 Cubans were also evacuated as Wilma stalled over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula Natalie, of Robroyston, Glasgow, went to Cancun with her boyfriend two weeks ago and was due to return to Scotland yesterday.
The student called her aunt on Wednesday to say she was being evacuated but has not been heard from since.
Last night, her grandfather Thomas Roscoe, 84, said: "We can only assume she's stuck in a shelter and cannot get word to us she is safe."
His wife Janet, 62, added: "Natalie said she thought she was being taken to a local school which was being set up as a rescue centre.
"We just want to know she's alright and to get her home safely."
The slow-moving hurricane is expected to pound the area for another day.
Meteorologists predict it will then curl around Cuba then sprint towards Florida.
Cancun Red Cross director Ricardo Portugal said the biggest problem so far had been "nervous crises", with 11 pregnant women rushed to hospitals over fears the storm had induced labour.
Last night, Andy Bodenham, international forecaster at the Met Office, said the recent upsurge in devastating storms could be following a seasonal pattern.
He said: "There was a pattern of enhanced storms which lasted 20 years in the 1930s"Forecasters now see a pattern akin to that. It's the normal fluctuation that you get through climatic seasons.
"This last hurricane season, we've recorded 21 named storms in the Atlantic, of which 12 have become fully-fledged hurricanes.
"In previous years, it's been normal to see half of that." # PEOPLE concerned about Brits in Mexico should call the Foreign Office on 020 7008 1500
Source: Sunday Mail; Glasgow (UK)
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