CANCUN, Mexico — Hurricane Wilma devastated the Yucatan Peninsula and its Mayan Riviera resorts for a second day Saturday, dumping as much as 5 feet of rain, ripping roofs off buildings where people had taken shelter, and scraping tons of sand from some of its most popular beaches. At least three people were killed, but many feared that the death toll would rise.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Alpha developed Saturday south of the Dominican Republic, the record 22nd tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. This marks the first time a letter from the Greek alphabet has been used, the official list of storm names having been exhausted.
In Mexico, thousands remained stranded and incommunicado on islands off the Yucatan, including Cozumel, about 40 miles south of here. Venturing out during a pause in the storm Saturday morning as the eye passed over this city of 500,000, residents of Cancun discovered widespread damage, from its luxury seaside resorts to its humble neighborhoods of tin-roofed homes.
By late Saturday afternoon, Wilma had weakened to a Category 2 storm. But the National Hurricane Center in Miami, announcing hurricane watches for Florida, said the storm could strengthen as it passes over the Gulf of Mexico. The storm-tracking center said Wilma may arrive in Florida by Monday.
Two people died of heart attacks, officials said, and another person was killed by a falling tree. But the full extent of the disaster may not be known for days because it remained too dangerous for relief workers to venture outside, and many more people were feared dead.
Bernabe Moreno, a 21-year-old hotel employee, fled in horror from a shelter set up inside a multiplex theater in Cancun when the structure's roof began to fly off at the height of the storm. He and 1,800 other refugees moved from one theater in the multiplex to the next.
"There were pieces of the roof falling on us," Moreno said.
The evacuees, dispersed over nine theaters in the multiplex, ended up in packed into three, and were finally forced to escape to a concrete parking garage.
"It was horrible, it was scary, and we had 1,000 people without bathrooms," said Jose Manuel Rubio, a 38-year-old Chilean tourist. "They say they're going to take us somewhere for the night, but where?"
Mexican media reported that the roof was also ripped off a Cancun gymnasium where 2,000 people had taken shelter, many of them foreign tourists.
After arriving on the mainland Friday morning as a Category 5 storm, Wilma essentially parked itself over the peninsula for nearly two days.
"This is the same as having four of five hurricanes of this size pass all at once," said Gov. Felix Gonzalez of the state of Quintana Roo. "Quintana Roo has never lived through a storm like this one. The level of destruction is without precedent."
Cancun's exclusive hotel district suffered serious damage, with the Hyatt especially hard hit. Luxury hotels were pounded with 30-foot waves, and the road that links the hotels' peninsula beaches to the mainland was underwater for much of Saturday.
Meteorologist Alberto Hernandez of the Mexican weather service predicted that some 1.3 million cubic yards, or 263 million gallons, of sand would be eroded from the beaches at Cancun and Cozumel.
Beaches were eroded up and down the Yucatan coast.
"The people in Playa del Carmen have told us that the ocean ate up the beach," said Leo Salinas, a meteorologist for the Mexican weather service, referring to a town 30 miles south of Cancun.
Last week, when Wilma was a Category 5 hurricane rumbling westward in the Caribbean, it set a record for the lowest atmospheric pressure ever recorded in an Atlantic basin storm, making it for a time the most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever.
After reaching land, Wilma may have set another record. On Isla Mujeres, just off the coast of Cancun, a weather station reported 64 inches of rain over a 24-hour period. Mexican weather officials said that, if confirmed, it would be a record for rainfall in Mexico, and more than triple the amount left by the last two hurricanes to pass through the peninsula.
Cancun endured more than 24 hours of hurricane-force winds, with only a few hours of respite Saturday morning when the hurricane's eye passed over the city.
Some people took advantage of the relative calm to stock up on necessities, even if it meant breaking into stores to do it. "In convenience stores, people entered to take food and drinks, and also other items not needed in an emergency," a correspondent for the newspaper Reforma reported.
Twelve people were arrested on suspicion of looting in Cancun, according to Mexico's official news agency.
Mexican television showed people wading through knee-deep water in Cancun's poorer neighborhoods.
"I'm afraid for my children," Oillia Garcia told TV Azteca. "We're a little desperate, a little afraid."
In downtown Cancun, the scene was one of devastation.
Along Tulum Avenue, trailer trucks were overturned. Storefronts were ripped off buildings, and metal signs were tossed about the street. The four-story headquarters of Mexicana Airlines was smashed in. Trees were stripped of leaves, and cars sat in roof-high water.
Fallen debris made many downtown streets impassible.
Winds reaching 145 mph leveled walls at a prison in Playa del Carmen, allowing five inmates to escape: Police recaptured one, but the other four escaped. A similar escape took place in a Cancun jail, Mexican television reported.
In Cuba on Saturday, hundreds of thousands have been evacuated ahead of the hurricane. Fidel Castro exhorted his people to prepare for the coming storm with "discipline."