Jet-ski riding gunmen attack Mexican tourist beach

Gunmen rode jet skis onto a popular beach in Cancun, Mexico, before firing in the air, sending tourists scrambling for cover.

The attack on Tuesday was the latest violent incident at the popular tourist destination on Mexico's Caribbean coast.

Local authorities said nobody appeared to be injured.

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Lucio Hernández Gutiérrez, the chief of police of the coastal state of Quintana Roo, said the attackers apparently pulled up to the beach on jet skis on Tuesday and opened fire at a beach in Cancun's hotel zone.

Mr Hernández Gutiérrez said the jet skis had been found and seized.

One witness to the attack, Rick Lebassa, a tourist from Maine in the US, said two or three gunmen appeared to be shooting into the air with pistols, not at the beach.

"There were two guys and maybe even a third, who came in on jet skis, and what I saw was them shooting up into the sky," Mr Lebassa said.

"I did not see any shots coming in toward the shoreline."

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Mr Lebassa says this was the first incident of this kind he's seen in his 31 years of coming to Cancun.

"I'm not overly concerned because this is the first time ever," Mr Lebassa said.

"We've been coming down for 31 years and we've never had any issues."

Not everyone was as unflappable as Mr Lebassa, though.

American tourists Andy Guyrich and Kerry Arms described the sense of terror on the beach.

"We just had to hit the deck," Mr Guyrich said.

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Mr Arms initially thought it was some kind of show.

"There was a delayed reaction for about maybe five seconds, then everybody started scrambling and screaming and crying, and running," he said.

The shooting is the latest in a string of violent incidents on the resort-studded coast, and came in the same week that a special battalion of National Guard troops was assigned to protect the area.

Mexican marines with bulletproof vests, helmets and assault rifles were seen patrolling Cancun's tourist-crowded beaches following the Tuesday shooting.