(Recasts with new dateline; updates Jamaica death toll)

By Tomas Sarmiento

VERACRUZ, Mexico, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Hurricane Dean took aim at Mexico's offshore oil platforms on Tuesday after sweeping through the Yucatan Peninsula where it toppled trees, roughed up tourist resorts and blew the roofs off homes.

A potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane when it crashed into Mexico's Caribbean coast, Dean forced tens of thousands of people into shelters. Remarkably, there were no reports of deaths or serious damage in the Yucatan.

Dean smashed up the arty resort of Tulum and washed sand off the famous beach at Cancun before crossing the peninsula and heading out into the southern Gulf of Mexico where state oil company Pemex has hundreds of wells and installations.

Mexico evacuated almost 19,000 staff from the wells, and shut down 80 percent of its crude production ahead of Dean's arrival.

There was no early word on whether oil platforms were damaged as Dean plowed through Gulf waters in the Campeche Sound on Tuesday after weakening to a Category 1 storm.

"Pemex is waiting for the hurricane to pass through the Campeche Sound," spokeswoman Martha Avelar said.

Store owners in the city of Veracruz, a historic Gulf port near where 16th century Spanish conquistadors first landed in Mexico, boarded up windows.

"There has been panic buying of food in supermarkets," said Gabriela Navarrete, 35, who runs a bar in the port. "The torches were sold out," she said.

The storm was due to lash oil platforms at sea and then make landfall again north of Veracruz, a balmy city often compared to Havana.

TRENDY RESORT SHATTERED

Dean destroyed one-bedroom beach cabins and restaurants and uprooted palm trees in the small, trendy Caribbean resort of Tulum with high winds and a strong storm surge.

Dazed locals wandered across white sands strewn with rocks, garbage and bits of debris from the small wooden and concrete huts popular with European and U.S. visitors.

Water surged down a main street at thigh level in Chetumal, a city of about 150,000 people near where the eye of the hurricane first hit land.

But the "Mayan Riviera" was almost intact compared to the devastation wrought on hotels and tourist sites by Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

"We escaped. It was very light," said Miguel Cruz, 29, a hotel receptionist in the resort of Playa del Carmen.

President Felipe Calderon said no deaths had been reported on the Mexican peninsula.

But Jamaican police raised the death toll to three from Dean's brush with the island last weekend. A 48-year-old school teacher died in a hospital after a piece of flying wood lodged in her chest on Sunday.

The storm killed a total of 12 people in its run through the Caribbean.

Heavy rain drenched Belize, a former British colony that is home to some 250,000 people and a famous barrier reef. Sugar canes fields were flattened in the north of the country but there were no deaths reported.

"Frankly, it was less severe than we expected. We're very happy that the damage has been contained. We know how to organize for hurricanes and there are more houses now built to withstand these forceful winds," said Robert Leslie, the government's cabinet secretary.

Category 5 hurricanes are rare but there were four in 2005, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.

Mexico's response to hurricanes has improved in recent years as emergency services regularly stage rehearsals and the population is well informed about disaster prevention.

(Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg in Belize, Cyntia Barrera in Mexico City and Horace Helps in Kingston)

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