CANCUN, Mexico (CNN) -- Hurricane Dean burgeoned into a Category 5 storm -- capable of inflicting catastrophic damage when it makes landfall early Tuesday.

The storm -- with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph -- was not expected to weaken before its landfall on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, the National Hurricane Center said.

A Category 5 storm is the most extreme level on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the standard measurement for hurricanes. Such hurricanes can have a storm surge of more than 18 feet and are powerful enough to take off roofs, uproot trees and wipe out buildings.

Dean is expected to pour 5 to 10 inches of rain on the Yucatan, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. Some areas could see up to 20 inches -- enough to "cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides," the hurricane center said.

Parts of Belize, including Belize City, were put under a curfew Monday night, and Prime Minister Said Musa froze prices of goods and services to prevent price gouging. People were being evacuated from low-lying, coastal and valley areas to hurricane shelters, the prime minister's office said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who was in Canada for a trilateral meeting with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, announced he would cut short his visit and return home Tuesday to deal with the storm.

At 11 p.m., Dean's eye was located about 150 miles (245 kilometers) east of Chetumal, Mexico, the hurricane center said. The storm was moving west at about 20 mph (32 kph).

Rain bands began rolling on shore in the Yucatan as the storm moved closer Monday night. People were urged to prepare for an "extremely dangerous" storm. Video Watch how Mexico is bracing for Dean »

Chetumal, the capital of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, was largely empty Monday evening, with little traffic in the streets. Most of the 130,000 residents in the coastal city appeared to have heeded government warnings to seek shelter or evacuate.

Coastal resorts such as Cancun and Cozumel largely emptied.

Regional airports said people were packing into planes to get out Monday, following one of the busiest weekends of the year -- the last before schools reopen in Mexico.

Of the 20,000 tourists in Quintana Roo, about 13,000 had been evacuated as of Monday evening, and planes were still taking off, said Rosario Ortiz Yeladaque, the state's secretary of government.

Although Dean was forecast to come ashore south of the main tourist areas and closer to Chetumal, the storm was so large -- about the size of Texas -- that its tropical winds and waves were expected to affect the entire Yucatan and neighboring Belize to the south.

Mexico's Interior Ministry declared a state of emergency in the state of Campeche, southwest of Cancun.

Mexico's state-run oil company, Petroleos de Mexico, said it was abandoning its offshore rigs in Dean's path and evacuating more than 14,000 workers, The Associated Press reported.

Stopping production at the Campeche Sound's 407 oil wells will result in a loss of 2.7 million barrels of oil and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, Pemex said, according to AP.

Meanwhile, the country's military moved about 4,000 troops into the area to help local officials in the aftermath of the storm.

Dean is expected to weaken while over the Yucatan Peninsula, but re-intensify to a major hurricane in the southern Gulf of Mexico before making another landfall along the Mexican coast around midday Wednesday in the vicinity of Tampico.

Tropical storm-force winds could be felt as far as 175 miles, forecasters reported.

Hurricane warnings covered all of Belize, the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula from the border with Belize northward to Cancun and the west coast of the Yucatan from south of Progresso southward to Ciudad del Carmen.

All warnings in the Cayman Islands were discontinued. A hurricane warning for Jamaica was dropped and replaced by a tropical storm warning. See Dean's projected path »

In the aftermath of the storm, Jamaica's government declared a state of emergency late Sunday, meaning only essential personnel were allowed to be out in the elements, journalist Kirk Abrahams told CNN. Highways were blocked by fallen trees, floodwaters and mud.

David Shields, the deputy director of the island's tourism board, described conditions in the capital, Kingston, as "absolutely scary." Ronald Jackson, Jamaica's disaster preparedness director, said at least one house had collapsed, but no one was seriously injured.

"We'll be sending assessment teams out as soon as we can," Jackson said.

Sustained winds of 80 mph buffeted Kingston throughout Sunday, and an aviation weather station at Kingston International Airport clocked winds at 114 mph.

Jamaica Public Service Co. -- the sole distributor of electricity in Jamaica -- announced it was turning off the island's electricity to preserve the integrity of the system. In addition, the National Water Commission said it had turned off some pumps, especially in places prone to flooding.

The storm has been blamed for at least seven deaths across the Caribbean islands.

Although Haiti was spared a direct hit, the civil protection bureau said at least two people were killed and 10 were injured. Six homes were destroyed and 200 were damaged, although Haiti did not suffer major mudslides or floods, officials said.

On St. Lucia, police said a man drowned in a river while trying to retrieve a cow. News media on Dominica reported a woman and her son died in a landslide, and two more people died on Martinique, AP reported, citing local authorities. Photo See I-Report images of Dean's effects on the Caribbean »
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The latest projections showed little chance that Dean would hit the United States. But federal officials and their state counterparts in Texas were preparing for any unexpected turn northward, and oil workers off the Texas coast were heading for shore.

David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he had activated his agency's hurricane response plan, with disaster teams on the ground in San Antonio and more standing by.