DEATH TOLL RISES TO 48 FROM HURRICANE OTIS IN SOUTHERN MEXICO

Desperate families made missing posters Friday and joined online groups to find loved ones out of touch since Hurricane Otis devastated the Mexican Pacific coast city of Acapulco.: AP

Mon 30 October 2023:

The death toll from Hurricane Otis in the Mexican state of Guerrero increased to 48 with 36 still missing, state governor Evelyn Salgado said Sunday.

Mexico’s civil defense agency said in a statement that 43 died in the resort city of Acapulco and five in nearby Coyuca de Benitez.

“It is still a preliminary figure,” the governor told President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador over the phone.

Otis made landfall on the Pacific coast on Wednesday, with winds reaching 165mph (266 km/h). It had intensified from a tropical storm into a category five hurricane – the most severe category – in just 12 hours.

Acapulco was among the areas worst hit in Mexico, with 80% of the resort’s hotels damaged and streets flooded.

Videos have been uploaded to social media showing looting in hard-hit neighbourhoods as food and water supplies run increasingly low.

The main road linking Acapulco to the rest of the country has only now been reopened, allowing the delivery of essential goods to the city.

In the Renacimiento neighbourhood, residents have been left angered by the lack of aid.

“The government hasn’t given us any help, not even hope,” Apolonio Maldonado told Reuters news agency, lifting his feet from the water to show deep red cuts on his shins.

“They haven’t left any food, or even mattresses or cots.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to help rebuild the city, but has accused his political rivals of exaggerating the extent of the looting to discredit his government before next year’s presidential election.

“They circle like vultures, they don’t care about people’s pain, they want to hurt us, for there to have been lots of deaths,” he said in a video uploaded to social media.

Officials say Otis was the most powerful storm to ever hit Mexico’s Pacific coast, leaving a trail of devastation estimated at billions of dollars.

The storm intensified so rapidly, powering up from a tropical storm into a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane in just 12 hours, giving residents little time to prepare. It then lost strength over land and finally dissipated.

Lopez Obrador said that the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission had put 3,211 electric poles back up, out of the 10,000 that were knocked down in the port of Acapulco alone.

He estimated that the electricity supply in Acapulco will be completely restored by Monday night to guarantee the supply of fuels such as gasoline, diesel and domestic gas.

The World Meteorological Organization has described the hurricane as “one of the most rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones on record,” exceeded in modern times only by Hurricane Patricia in 2015.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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