Hurricane Erick powered up into a Category 3 major hurricane Wednesday evening as it bore down on the southern Mexico coast, threatening to unleash destructive winds, flash floods and a dangerous storm surge on the region in coming hours,

Erick has been upgraded to an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane near Southern Mexico’s Pacific coast, the National Hurricane Center said. The major storm was about 70 miles (110 kilometers) west-southwest of Puerto Angel,

Hurricane Erick strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, cautioning that further strengthening could occur before landfall.