Cancun, Quintana Roo — On one of the biggest summer weekends for the resort, a sargassum raft larger than the island of Cozumel can be spotted from the top floors of Boulevard Kukulcan’s busy hotels.
The imminent arrival of a massive sargassum tide will foul beaches and create chaos this weekend, said Esteban Jesús Amaro Mauricio, technical director of the Sargasso Monitoring Network of Cancun.
The first wave, measuring 48 kilometers from north to south and 14.8 kilometers from east to west, is aiming for the hotel zone.
The sargassum tide “that we anticipated a week ago is imminent, based on satellite images that indicate the increase of sargassum in 250 kilometers of the coasts of Benito Juárez, Puerto Morelos, Solidaridad, Tulum and Othón Pompeyo Blanco,” he said.
Amaro Mauricio reports excessive sargassum from Tulum to Playa Xpu Há. In Cozumel, Holbox and Isla Mujeres, the presence of the seaweed-like substance is minimal or nil.
“We need reinforcements urgently,” said Roberto Cintron Gomez, president of the Hotel Association of Cancun, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres.
Jose Manuel Lopez Campos, president of the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco-Servytur), said that as of now, the crisis has not impacted occupancy rates along the Mexican Caribbean coast, although that could change during the next holiday season.
Meetings, conventions and vacations are planned in advance, he said, “hence the urgency of laying the foundations to resolve the problem on the coast.”
Source: La Jornada Maya
