Hurricane Jova flooded the streets of Mexico's main Pacific port with torrential rain Wednesday, and inundated several popular beach resorts along the coast.

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© Marco Ugarte / APFloodwaters from Hurricane Jova swamp a main intersection in Villa de las Garzas, Mexico, on Wednesday.
Streets in the port city of Manzanillo were underwater, communities along the coast were flooded and roads were blocked due to fallen trees and washouts after Jova hit the coast as a Category Two storm late Tuesday.

Highways leading northwest from Manzanillo along the coast were closed and the beach towns of Zihuatlan, Melaque and Barra de Navidad were swamped with floodwaters, according to the Red Cross. However, there were no reports of injuries or deaths.

"The streets of Manzanillo are impassable, as are the highways connecting Manzanillo with the south of Jalisco," national Red Cross coordinator Isaac Oxenhaut said.

Some streets in Manzanillo were under 3 feet of water and the port - Mexico's busiest for cargo - remained closed to traffic, although a handful of shops were reopening.

Farther west in the coastal town of Melaque, local musician Roberto Orozco said he was forced to take shelter on higher ground after his entire block was flooded.

"I got back to find my stove and my fridge swimming," said Orozco, 52. "We're really sad, we lost everything."

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© Marco Ugarte / APToppled trees and inundated vehicles are caught in floodwaters in Villa de las Garzas, Mexico, on Wednesday.
In nearby Tomatlan, the roof of a house collapsed during the storm, injuring two children who were taken to hospital.

With top winds reaching 75 miles per hour, Jova was about 30 miles south-southeast of the tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta at 8 a.m. ET, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The Miami-based NHC said the center of Jova crossed the Mexican coast near the town of Chamela in the state of Jalisco, on a stretch of land dotted with beaches south of Puerto Vallarta. Mexico has no major oil installations in the Pacific.

Puerto Vallarta, which suffered bad flooding when hurricane Kenna hit in 2002, was spared from the storm overnight.

Jalisco authorities had protectively set up some 70 shelters. There were no evacuations in Puerto Vallarta but people were brought to safety from Zihuatlan and Melaque.

On Tuesday, workers scrambled to fill and stack sandbags to protect the professional beach volleyball courts on Puerto Vallarta's coast, where events from the Pan-American Games are scheduled to be staged later this week.

"Jova weakening as it moves further inland ... heavy rainfall remains a major threat," the center said. Jova weakened to a Category One hurricane, the lowest on the five-step intensity scale, and was expected to weaken further to a tropical storm in coming hours.

Inland flooding, slides feared

Still, Jova could produce up to 12 inches of rainfall over four states, with isolated rainfall of up to 20 inches, the hurricane center said, possibly causing flash flooding and mudslides in mountainous areas.

It was expected to hit the states of Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit the hardest. About 183,000 people live in the center of the storm's projected path, said Laura Gurza, chief of the federal Civil Protection emergency response agency.

Manzanillo, Mexico's main point of arrival for cargo containers, has been closed since late Sunday and about 13 container ships are stuck in the port. Heavy rain and strong winds hit the port for most of Tuesday.

The port handles about 750 containers of cargo a month and ships goods including cars, car parts, cattle, minerals and tequila to Asian and North American markets.

Before nightfall Tuesday, marines visited flood-prone areas in Manzanillo to advise people to leave . They found a home for elderly people whose homes were already flooded and evacuated dozens of people to stay with relatives, Adm. Jaime Mejia said. Forty others were evacuated in the nearby town of Tecoman, he said.

New system off Mexico

Farther south, a tropical depression formed Wednesday, prompting the Mexican government to issue a warning from Barra De Tonala southeastward to the Mexico-Guatemala border, the NHC said.

The system, carrying winds of 35 miles per hour, was headed north toward the Pacific coast and could be come a tropical storm later Wednesday, the center said.

The system "is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 5 to 10 inches over portions of the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Chiapas as well as portions of Guatemala ... with possible isolated maximum amounts of 15 inches," it said.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Irwin lost some strength farther out in the Pacific with winds near 40 mph. While it was expected to move eastward toward land, forecasts indicated it probably wouldn't make landfall.