MEXICO CITY, Mexico - Hurricane Patricia crashed into western Mexico over the weekend with rain and winds of up to 165 mph (266 kph), making her one of the strongest hurricanes ever on record.

The storm hammered coastal areas but causing less damage than had been feared as it skirted cities and major tourist resorts.

Patricia knocked down trees, flooded streets and battered buildings, after ploughing into Mexico as a Category 5 hurricane on Friday evening before grinding inland.

The storm rapidly lost power in the mountains that rise up along the Pacific coast and was downgraded to a tropical depression on Saturday morning as it passed through central Mexico.

Thousands of residents and tourists along the coast ended up in improvised shelters after fleeing the hurricanes advance. There were no early reports of deaths and many feel they escaped lightly considering the strength of the hurricane.

Patricia did not hit large population centers, which local officials believe saved many lives.

Patricia's edges brushed the major port of Manzanillo with port director Jorge Bustos saying the facility was closed, through Saturday.

"We didn't have any major damage," he told local media. "Sure, gates, doors, some windows, volatile or light roofs, that sort of thing, but nothing that was a risk to our operations."

Further north, around 15,000 tourists were hastily evacuated from the busy beach resort of Puerto Vallarta on Friday morning, but were able to return that evening.

Residents of Las Juntas, a village where the Ameca and Mascota rivers meet about 6 miles (10 km) from Puerto Vallarta, were being evacuated on Saturday after a sudden rise in water levels overnight caused flooding, emergency services spokeswoman Veronica Diaz said.

The eye of the hurricane hit land on Friday evening near the area of Cuixmala, located between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta and home to one of Mexico's most exclusive beach resort getaways.

The area around Cuixmala is very sparsely populated, lowering the risk to Mexicans from the storm, but there are small towns, and it was not clear yet how much damage they had sustained.

At one point the storm was generating sustained winds of up to 200 mph (322 kph), making Patricia the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.