Hurricane Isidore has smashed into Mexico's south-eastern Yucatan peninsula, killing at least three people.

The storm uprooted trees, ripped roofs off houses and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Parts of the historic state capital, Merida, were without power, and 70,000 people were told to flee coastal areas as winds of up to 180 km/h (110 mph) cut off phone lines and whipped up clouds of debris.

Yucatan Governor Patricio Patron said little was known about damage or deaths as roads were blocked and phones were down.

"This is a disaster. We don't have enough information, and we don't have enough communication," he said.

Authorities said one person was electrocuted by downed power lines in Merida, another died of a heart attack as a direct result of the storm, and a third was killed in a car accident outside the city.

Mexican President Vicente Fox headed to the area to survey the damage.

Isidore weakened into a tropical storm as it moved overland - but the US National Hurricane Center warned that it was expected to head west over the Gulf of Mexico and return to hurricane strength.

Torrential rain

Meteorologists also said Isidore - which lashed western Cuba with rain for three days - was now slowly moving towards the Mexican coastline of the state of Vera Cruz.

A satellite image shows the storm hitting Yucatan (bottom left)

And they said it could turn northwards to threaten the coastlines of the US states of Texas or Louisiana within the next few days.

The storm dumped between 30 and 50 centimetres (12 to 20 inches) of rain as it reached Mexico.

Maximum sustained winds had weakened to about 100 km/h (60mph), and the storm's centre was about 100 km (60 miles) south of Merida, drifting eastward.

Mr Patron cancelled Monday school classes for almost 500,000 children because the buildings were needed for shelter.

We feel for people who have homes of trees and straw

Merida resident Julio Cesar

While the government sent out soldiers to make sure people evacuated, many planned to stay in their homes despite the storm.

"We are not going to leave, because nobody is going to look after our homes and we don't know what will happen," said Guadalupe Pech, who was digging in with her family in their tiny home near a lagoon.

'Clean-up task'

Many residents were more concerned about friends and relatives in the more sparsely-populated coastal areas. "We feel for people who have homes of trees and straw," said Julio Cesar, a security guard.

Isidore skipped Cuba's population centres but flooded its farmland

The Mexican state oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos, was removing more than 8,000 workers from its Gulf drilling platforms, leaving skeleton crews to wait out the storm.

There were reports that one person in Guatemala was swept away by a swollen river near the Mexican border.

Nicaraguan officials to the south said rain caused by Isidore's perimeter had caused flooding that killed two people and forced the evacuation of others.

On Friday, Isidore battered western Cuba, with winds of up to 160 km/h (100mph) and heavy rains, forcing 250,000 people to flee the Pinar del Rio province.

The storm veered from its initial trajectory, when it threatened to batter more populous areas, but it dumped about 63cm (25in) of rain in 24 hours, damaging tobacco stocks, the source of the best leaves for Cuba's famed cigars.