Hurricane Patricia has weakened rapidly over Mexico, but authorities have warned of floods and landslides as it dumps heavy rain.
View of a street in Manzanillo, Colima state, Mexico on October 23, 2015, during hurricane Patricia. Photo: AFP
Patricia was the strongest storm ever recorded in the Americas when it ploughed into Mexico yesterday but has now been downgraded to a tropical depression.
Damage has been less than feared with populous regions spared.
But the US National Hurricane Center said Patricia was still forecast to dump up to half a metre of rain.
Mexican authorities evacuated thousands of residents and tourists and a state of emergency was declared in three states in Hurricane Patricia's path.
The United States National Hurricane Center in Miami said the category five hurricane hit Jalisco state west of the major port of Manzanillo with winds of 265 kilometres an hour.
It was packing maximum sustained winds of 270 kilometres an hour when it struck land.
Hours earlier, the hurricane peaked with winds of 325kph, stronger than the Super Typhoon Haiyan, which left thousands of people dead or missing when it struck The Philippines in 2013.
Evacuees remain at a shelter in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on October 23 ,2015, during hurricane Patricia Photo: AFP
Save the Children spokesperson Anthony Caswell Pérez said he expected to see flooding and many houses destroyed.
He said Save the Children teams will be out doing initial assessments of damage left by the hurricane today.
Mr Caswell Pérez expected the clean up to be problematic in some areas such as Colima, where there is an active volcano.
"There's going to be a type of mud that's going to complicate things further as the ash mixes with the rain so we do see it as going to be very complicated."
According to a government spokesperson about 19,000 people have been evacuated and there are about 1800 temporary shelters active.
