[ad_1]
Hurricane Otis killed at least 27 people when it lashed the beach resort town of Acapulco on Mexico’s Pacific coast as a scale-topping category 5 storm, officials said on Thursday.
The hurricane crashed into Acapulco Tuesday night into Wednesday with furious 270kph (165mph) winds, cutting off communications with the city and delaying updates on fatalities and damage.
“Unfortunately, we received word from the state and city governments that 27 people are dead and four are missing,” Secretary of State for Security Rosa Icela Rodriguez told a press conference in Mexico City.
She said communications with Acapulco were being gradually restored.
The main road connecting it with the capital has reopened but only in one direction, Rodriguez said.
Many people in Acapulco, which has a population of 780,000, were still without electricity on Thursday because the storm knocked out dozens of electrical pylons.
“Acapulco is a total disaster. It is not what it was before. The park was totally destroyed, the buildings, all the streets,” 24-year-old resident Eric Hernandez said Wednesday.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the government was working to re-establish power and clean up the devastation wrought by the hurricane.
“What Acapulco suffered was really disastrous,” he told a press conference.
Otis flooded streets, ripped roofs off homes and hotels and severed communications, road and air access.
Downed phone service and electricity lines made it hard for officials to quickly assess the extent of the damage.
Nearly 8,400 members of Mexico’s army, air force and national guard were deployed in and near Acapulco to assist in clean-up efforts, the defence ministry said.
Classes were cancelled for students across the state for a second day, and Governor Evelyn Salgado said on social media that authorities were working to restore electricity and reactivate drinking water pumps in Acapulco.
01:10
Strong winds in China blow away restaurant staff holding onto canopy
Strong winds in China blow away restaurant staff holding onto canopy
Mexico’s state power utility CFE had over 1,300 employees working to restore power, it said on Wednesday evening, when some 300,000 people remained without electricity.
The port city’s international airport was closed after Otis wrecked the control tower, cut telecommunications and left access roads blocked.
Additional reporting by Reuters
[ad_2]
Source link
