Sargassum threatens the coasts of Quintana Roo just a few days before Semana Santa

At least 15 beaches in the northern part of Quintana Roo have excessive sargassum spills a few weeks before the start of the Easter holidays, while the Quintana Roo Monitoring Network warns of the arrival of a large stain heading for the Caribbean Mexican.

This massive landfall is located north of Honduras and moves with the ocean current to the northwest, so it is expected to reach the state’s beaches within 10 or 15 days.

The beginning of spring and the first long weekend of the year coincided with the beginning of the sargassum runoff season that surprised dozens of visitors with large quantities of the algae in the sandbanks of Tulum, Playa del Carmen, Puerto Morelos, and Cancun.

The Quintana Roo Monitoring Network specified that the sargassum is concentrated in Central America and that the small quantities of algae that are reaching the state right now are only an advance of the great “stain” of these macroalgae that is moving towards the north.

According to the monitoring system, the seaweed will arrive in Quintana Roo starting with Xcalak, Mahahual, Sian Kaan, Tulum, Akumal, and so forth.

In some tourist destinations such as Playa del Carmen, the cleaning and collection of the macroalgae have already begun by workers from the Directorate of the Federal Maritime Terrestrial Zone (Zofemat) of Solidaridad, who with shovels, rakes, and heavy machinery collect the sargassum, and where yesterday they collected about 35 tons.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Navy announced that it is working on strategies to deal with the problem this year, in coordination with the other authorities and the business sector.

TYT Newsroom