Mexico City  - Over 1,000 people were evacuated early Monday from the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico as Tropical Storm Dolly entered the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm was moving north-west over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said. A hurricane watch has been issued for part of the coast of the US state of Texas and for the Mexican coast north of San Fernando to the US border.

Sustained winds were close to 85 kilometres per hour. "Strengthening is forecast. And Dolly could become a hurricane by tomorrow (Tuesday)," the NHC said.

"The storm is not expected to affect US oil and natural gas operations in the Gulf," Bloomberg news agency quoted AccuWeather. com forecaster Kate Wortring as saying.

Petroleos Mexicanos, the third-largest oil supplier to the US, said its workers would stay put as the storm was likely to pass north of its drilling platforms.

In the north-eastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, heavy rain, flooding and overflowing rivers damaged the property of thousands of people.

Felix Arturo Gonzalez Canto, governor of the state of Quintana Roo, decreed a red alert late Sunday as news came in of the advancing storm. Twelve units of emergency accommodation were set up.

"As a preventive measure, we decided to evacuate some 400 fishermen in Banco Chinchorro, the coastal area at Punta Allen and the new town of Tulum, where some
1,000 people live. Over the next few hours we will decide on the evacuation of Holbox," the governor said.

The authorities were also contemplating a possible evacuation of the resort of Cancun and the islands of Cozumel and Isla Mujeres.

"Prevention is the only tool on which society can count," the governor said.

The hurricane season in the Atlantic officially lasts from June 1 to November 30, and experts were expecting 15-20 storms over this period. Dolly is the fourth tropical storm of the current season. (dpa)