Hurricane Wilma bore down on the deserted beach resorts of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula this afternoon, lashing the Caribbean coast with torrential rain, giant waves and sustained 145mph winds.

Powerlines toppled, roads vanished and trees fell as the fierce storm - which earlier this week became the strongest ever recorded - advanced slowly on the idyllic resorts of the 'Maya Riviera' after slamming into the island of Cozumel, scuba divers' paradise 15 miles off the mainland.

Although more than 20,000 residents and tourists on Mexico's easten-most coast have been evacuted to safety on special flights, many still remain.

Around 8,000 foreigners who could not escape were whisked from luxurious hotels to hot and crowded emergency shelters in schools, sports halls and hotels.

In the popular resort of Benito Juarez, in Cancun, the howl of the advancing wind was the only sound. Waves had already washed away much of the white sand beach that lures tourists from Canada, the United States and Europe.

"It was meant to be the fortnight holiday of a lifetime," said Simon Hayes, a 28-year-old British tourist in the lobby of the Hotel Royal Porto Real in Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. "This is not how I envisaged it working out."

Clutching a plastic bag containing a pillow and blanket, 30-year-old Carlos Porta of Barcelona, Spain, said: "From a luxury hotel to a shelter. It makes you angry. But what can you do?"

Others attempted to salvage something of the holiday spirit. At the Cuxin Baxal sports complex, where about 2,500 tourists waited, the floor was hidden by blankets and mattresses but an area was set aside for chefs who, complete with their white hats, prepared meals next to a large display of tropical fruit.

One entrepreneur was selling "I survived Hurricane Wilma" T-shirts. Price: $10 each. Quequi, a local newspaper, ran the simple headline: "God protect us!".

Wilma, a swirl of 150mph (240kph) winds stretching 85 miles across, has made a slow, erratic procession through the Caribbean since becoming a hurricane on Monday.

Moving at just 6mph, the storm is expected to rage over the Mexican coast for up to 24 hours, bringing storm surges of 4m (13ft) before moving northeast towards Cuba and Florida. Analysts say Wilma's slow progress makes it extremely dangerous, with the core winds gathering power as they grind over the sea.

Cuba evacuated nearly 370,000 people in the face of the storm, which has already killed at least 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica.

With Florida the next in line, Governor Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency, and officials cleared tourists out of the exposed Florida Keys. Across Florida’s southwest coast, people put up shutters, bought canned goods and bottled water and waited in ever-growing lines at gas stations. Wilma will be the eighth hurricane in 12 months.

Max Mayfield, director of the United States National Hurricane Centre, said last night that Wilma, a slow-moving Category 4 hurricane that could strengthen to Category 5 over the course of the day, has "the potential to do catastrophic damage" when it makes landfall.

But as she slammed into Mexico today, Mr Mayfield said that Wilma was expected to linger over Mexico throughout the weekend, meaning it should weaken before it hits Florida.

"It is terrible news for Mexico but good for the rest of the US," he said.

"In terms of its forward motion, Wilma is very slow at the moment and we expect that to continue," said Julian Heming, a tropical weather expert at the Met Office. "That means it could be potentially very damaging for the northern tip of Yucatan Peninsula and then for western Cuba."

"Over the next two days we expect it to be moving very slowly and meandering in that area. It will bring very heavy amounts of rainfall simply because it will remain there for so long and that means a risk of flooding," said Mr Heming.

Mr Heming said the only good news is that Wilma's "angle of attack" means that the hurricane will strike Mexico with its left side. Hurricanes in the northern hemisphere rotate anti-clockwise, bringing most power to winds on the right hand side of the storm.

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