Business owners dreaded major damage to the region, which pulls in more tourist dollars than anywhere else in Mexico.

Locals, many of whom live in ramshackle houses much less able to withstand storm winds than Cancun's luxury hotels, worried about their homes as they headed for shelter.

With Emily due to smash into the Yucatan Peninsula late Sunday evening about 62 miles (100 km) south of Cancun, some feared a repeat of Hurricane Gilbert, which tore up Cancun in 1988, razing homes and killing hundreds.

"We're pretty terrified. I lived through Gilbert," said Ezequiel Martinez, 53, who lives with his family in a shack with a palm-frond roof near the resort town of Playa del Carmen, an hour's drive south of Cancun.

"We've covered everything with canvas but I don't know if it will hold out. It could be we'll find nothing left."

Some 60,000 people piled into hurricane shelters across the state of Quintana Roo, including petrified tourists who had failed to make last-minute flights home. Tens of thousands fled the resort-lined strip of coastline over the weekend.

Emily left four dead in Jamaica after brushing past the Caribbean island early on Sunday. In Mexico two pilots were killed on Saturday night when a gust of wind blew their helicopter into the Gulf of Mexico during oil rig evacuations.

CHAOS IN CANCUN

The second major hurricane of the season, Emily was rated an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 on the five-step scale of hurricane intensity, capable of doing severe damage to infrastructure. Forecasters warned of coastal flooding.

At 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), Emily was at latitude 19.4 north and longitude 85.2 west, or 135 miles (215 km) southeast of Cozumel island, and moving west-northwest near 20 mph (32 kph). Hurricane winds extended out 60 miles (95 km) from the center.

With flights canceled, petrified tourists joined Mexicans in stockpiling food and water as shops and bars boarded up their windows. As the wind picked up people scurried to safety clutching stacks of takeout pizza.

Some foreigners were bedded down in the lobbies of luxury hotels inland from the coast by early evening. Flimsier hotels near the coast were closed and boarded up for the night.

Earlier, officials handed out a list of emergency shelters in the airport where a scrum of panicked tourists crammed around information booths as they tried to find flights out.

"It's my birthday today and I don't know if I'm going to be at home tonight or in a hurricane shelter," said Canadian Maureen Calkinn, turning 57, of Victoria, Canada.

Thousands had been evacuated from the islands of Isla Mujeres and Cozumel or cabana resorts along the coast -- although 170 on the backpacker paradise of Isla Mujeres signed disclaimer forms allowing them to stay at their own risk.

Some in Cancun also refused shelter. "This is our first hurricane and we want to see it," said Jonathan Morisset from Quebec, Canada, planning to stay outside with his girlfriend.

Others groaned at a suspension on alcohol sales.

"We saw them stacking up sandbags at our hotel and putting tape on the glass and then they cut off the alcohol," said Andrew Lechance, 41, from Boston. "The party's off in Cancun."

Emily passed 100 miles (160 km) to the south of Jamaica but still triggered flooding and mudslides there. Two children and two adults died when a car was swept away.

Thousands of troops were on standby in Mexico as people crammed into schools and sports centers for the night.

State oil monopoly Pemex, a major supplier to the United States, stepped up its evacuation drill, removing every one of its 15,000 workers from offshore rigs in the southern Gulf of Mexico. Pemex closed 63 oil wells on Saturday, which will dent daily production by around a quarter.