Subscribe Login
Jamaica Observer
ePaper
The Edge 105 FM Radio Fyah 105 FM
Jamaica Observer
ePaper
The Edge 105 FM Radio Fyah 105 FM
    • Home
    • News
      • Latest News
      • Cartoon
      • International News
      • Central
      • North & East
      • Western
      • Environment
      • Health
      • #
    • Business
      • Business Bites
      • Social Love
    • Sports
      • Football
      • Basketball
      • Cricket
      • Horse Racing
      • World Champs
      • Commonwealth Games
      • FIFA World Cup
      • Olympics
      • #
    • Videos
    • Entertainment
      • Music
      • Movies
      • Art & Culture
      • Bookends
      • #
    • Lifestyle
      • Page2
      • Food
      • Tuesday Style
      • Food Awards
      • JOL Takes Style Out
      • Design Week JA
      • Black Friday
      • #
    • All Woman
      • Home
      • Relationships
      • Features
      • Fashion
      • Fitness
      • Rights
      • Parenting
      • Advice
      • #
    • Obits
    • Classifieds
      • Employment
      • Property
      • Motor Vehicles
      • Place an Ad
      • Obituaries
    • More
      • Games
      • Elections
      • Jobs & Careers
      • Study Centre
      • Jnr Study Centre
      • Letters
      • Columns
      • Advertorial
      • Editorial
      • Supplements
      • Webinars
    • Home
    • News
      • Latest News
      • Cartoon
      • International News
      • Central
      • North & East
      • Western
      • Environment
      • Health
      • #
    • Business
      • Business Bites
      • Social Love
    • Sports
      • Football
      • Basketball
      • Cricket
      • Horse Racing
      • World Champs
      • Commonwealth Games
      • FIFA World Cup
      • Olympics
      • #
    • Videos
    • Entertainment
      • Music
      • Movies
      • Art & Culture
      • Bookends
      • #
    • Lifestyle
      • Page2
      • Food
      • Tuesday Style
      • Food Awards
      • JOL Takes Style Out
      • Design Week JA
      • Black Friday
      • #
    • All Woman
      • Home
      • Relationships
      • Features
      • Fashion
      • Fitness
      • Rights
      • Parenting
      • Advice
      • #
    • Obits
    • Classifieds
      • Employment
      • Property
      • Motor Vehicles
      • Place an Ad
      • Obituaries
    • More
      • Games
      • Elections
      • Jobs & Careers
      • Study Centre
      • Jnr Study Centre
      • Letters
      • Columns
      • Advertorial
      • Editorial
      • Supplements
      • Webinars
  • Home
  • News
    • International News
  • Latest
  • Business
    • Business Bites
  • Cartoon
  • Games
  • Food Awards
  • Health
  • Entertainment
    • Bookends
  • Regional
  • Sports
    • Sports
    • World Cup
    • World Champs
    • Olympics
  • Videos
  • Career & Education
  • Classifieds
  • All Woman
  • Environment
  • Webinars
  • More
    • Football
    • Elections
    • Letters
    • Advertorial
    • Columns
    • Editorial
    • Supplements
  • Epaper
  • Design Week
58 more missing after massive Mexico storm
People stand on the edge of a collapsed bridge as they wait to ferry their goods via a boat across the Papagayos River, south of Acapulco, Mexico, Wednesday.
News
September 18, 2013

58 more missing after massive Mexico storm

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s government said 58 people were missing after a massive landslide smashed through a tiny coffee-growing village deep in the country’s southern mountains, where fresh waves of rain threatened more danger for rescue workers trying to evacuate the last residents from the isolated hamlet on Thursday.

The same storm that devastated Acapulco and surrounding areas over the weekend regenerated into Hurricane Manuel and was swirling into the Pacific coast again, this time further north, just offshore from the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan.

The US National Hurricane Centre said the Category 1 hurricane was expected to move slightly inland and continue to dump rain on fishing villages. It is a third blow to a country still reeling from the one-two punch of Manuel’s first landfall and Hurricane Ingrid on Mexico’s eastern coast.

Federal officials raised the death toll from the passage of Manuel and Hurricane Ingrid from 60 to 80 earlier Wednesday. They said they were not yet including landslide victims in the village of La Pintada, several hours north of Acapulco, but “It’s very likely that these 58 missing people lost their lives,” said Angel Aguirre, governor of storm-battered Guerrero state.

Sinaloa state civil protection authorities said some areas were already flooding and dozens were evacuated from small fishing villages.

Heavy rains also began pelting the state of Guerrero again Wednesday night, increasing the risk for federal police trying to evacuate the last 45 residents of the village of La Pintada, where tons of dirt and rocks smashed through the centre of town Monday night, burying a church and a number of two-story homes.

Federal authorities reached La Pintada by helicopter and evacuated 334 people, some of whom are hurt, one seriously, said Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.

Osorio Chong said there was a risk of more landslides for the federal police who stayed in the village overnight and hoped to leave with the last 45 residents on helicopters early Thursday morning.

He said the landslide went right through the middle of the village of some 600 people, accessible in normal conditions by winding mountain roads now broken multiple times by landslides and flooding.

In Acapulco, three days of Biblical rain and leaden skies evaporated into broiling late-summer sunshine that roasted thousands of furious tourists trying vainly to escape the city, and hundreds of thousands of residents returning to homes devastated by reeking tides of brown floodwater.

The depth of the destruction wreaked by Manuel, which first hit Mexico on Sunday as a tropical storm, was highlighted when the transportation secretary said it would be Friday at the earliest before authorities could clear and reconnect the parallel highways that connect this bayside resort to the rest of the world.

Hundreds of residents of Acapulco’s poor outlying areas slogged through waist-high water to pound on the closed shutters of a looted Costco, desperate for food, drinking water and other basics.

Many paused and fished in the murky waters for anything of value piling waterlogged clothing and empty aluminium cans into plastic bags.

“If we can’t work, we have to come and get something to eat,” said 60-year-old fisherman Anastasio Barrera, as he stood with his wife outside the store.

With a tropical disturbance over the Yucatan Peninsula headed toward Mexico’s soggy Gulf coast, the country could face another double hit as it struggles to restore services and evacuate those stranded by flooding from Manuel and Ingrid, which hit the Gulf coast.

Mexico’s federal Civil Protection coordinator, Luis Felipe Puente, said 35,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.

Elsewhere in the verdant coastal countryside of Guerrero, people turned motorboats into improvised ferries, shuttling passengers, boxes of fruit and jugs of water across rivers that surged and ripped bridges from their foundations over the weekend.

In Acapulco’s upscale Diamond Zone, the military commandeered a commercial centre for tourists trying to get onto one of the military or commercial flights that remained the only way out of the city. Thousands lined up outside the mall’s locked gates, begging for a seat on a military seat or demanding that airline Aeromexico honour a previously purchased ticket.

“We don’t even have money left to buy water,” said Tayde Sanchez Morales, a retired electric company worker from the city of Puebla. “The hotel threw us out and we’re going to stay here and sleep here until they throw us out of here.”

Mexican officials said that more than 10,000 people had been flown out of the city on about 100 flights by Wednesday evening, just part of the 40,000 to 60,000 tourists estimated to be stranded in the city.

A lucky few held up ransacked beach umbrellas against the sun. Temperatures were in the mid-80s but felt far hotter. Dozens of others collapsed in some of the few spots of shade.

“Forty-eight hours without electricity, no running water and now we can’t get home,” said Catalina Clave, 46, who works at the Mexico City stock exchange.

{"website":"website"}{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
img img
0 Comments · Make a comment

ALSO ON JAMAICA OBSERVER

17 Haitians taken into police custody after arriving in Portland
Latest News, News
17 Haitians taken into police custody after arriving in Portland
June 22, 2026
PORTLAND, Jamaica — Seventeen Haitians arrived in the Passley Gardens area of Port Antonio, Portland on Monday. Observer Online learnt that they were ...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Woman files lawsuit against Barbados gov’t over COVID-19 vaccine
Latest News, Regional
Woman files lawsuit against Barbados gov’t over COVID-19 vaccine
June 22, 2026
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — A woman has filed a lawsuit against the Barbados Government alleging that she has suffered serious health complications a...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
US military says two alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ killed in latest strike in Caribbean Sea
Latest News, Regional
US military says two alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ killed in latest strike in Caribbean Sea
June 22, 2026
MIAMI, United States (CMC) — The Miami-based United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said that two alleged male “narco-terrorists” were killed in a ...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Kenya health minister in contempt over US Ebola site, says court
International News, Latest News
Kenya health minister in contempt over US Ebola site, says court
June 22, 2026
NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) — Kenya's high court found the country's health minister in contempt on Monday over the continued construction of an Ebola facili...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
UK Labour leadership frontrunner Andy Burnham sworn in as MP
International News, Latest News
UK Labour leadership frontrunner Andy Burnham sworn in as MP
June 22, 2026
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — The frontrunner to be the United Kingdom's next prime minister, Andy Burnham, was sworn in as a Member of Parliament Mo...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Decomposing body found in Santa Cruz
Latest News, News
Decomposing body found in Santa Cruz
June 22, 2026
ST ELIZABETH, Jamaica — A decomposing body was found in bushes off Coke Drive in Santa Cruz on Sunday. Preliminary reports are that about 9:00 am, far...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Seven PMs in 10 years: Britain’s decade of ‘chaos’
International News, Latest News
Seven PMs in 10 years: Britain’s decade of ‘chaos’
June 22, 2026
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain will have its seventh prime minister in a decade this year after Labour leader Keir Starmer was ousted on Monda...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
PNP Women’s Movement seeks clarity on Jamaica’s participation in US TCN programme
Latest News, News
PNP Women’s Movement seeks clarity on Jamaica’s participation in US TCN programme
June 22, 2026
KINGSTON, Jamaica — The People's National Party (PNP) Women's Movement is demanding answers from the Government amid reports that Jamaica has agreed t...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
❮ ❯

Polls

HOUSE RULES

  1. We welcome reader comments on the top stories of the day. Some comments may be republished on the website or in the newspaper; email addresses will not be published.
  2. Please understand that comments are moderated and it is not always possible to publish all that have been submitted. We will, however, try to publish comments that are representative of all received.
  3. We ask that comments are civil and free of libellous or hateful material. Also please stick to the topic under discussion.
  4. Please do not write in block capitals since this makes your comment hard to read.
  5. Please don't use the comments to advertise. However, our advertising department can be more than accommodating if emailed: advertising@jamaicaobserver.com.
  6. If readers wish to report offensive comments, suggest a correction or share a story then please email: community@jamaicaobserver.com.
  7. Lastly, read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy

Recent Posts

Archives

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Tweets

Polls

Recent Posts

Archives

Logo Jamaica Observer
Breaking news from the premier Jamaican newspaper, the Jamaica Observer. Follow Jamaican news online for free and stay informed on what's happening in the Caribbean
Featured Tags
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Health
  • Auto
  • Business
  • Letters
  • Page2
  • Football
Categories
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Page2
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Page2
Ads
img
Jamaica Observer, © All Rights Reserved
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • RSS Feeds
  • Feedback
  • Privacy Policy
  • Editorial Code of Conduct