(Acapulco) At least 48 people died as Category 5 hurricane Otis hit Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, most in Acapulco, Mexican authorities said Sunday as the death toll continued to climb and families buried their loved ones.
Mexico’s civil defense agency said in a statement that 43 of the dead were in the resort city of Acapulco and five in nearby Coyuca de Benitez. The governor of Guerrero state earlier raised the number of missing people to 36, up from 10 the day before. The death toll rose after authorities raised it to 39 on Saturday.
In Acapulco, families began burying the dead on Sunday, continuing to search for essential goods as officials and volunteers cleared the streets.
For a short time outside the morgue Sunday morning, at least half a dozen families arrived, some looking for loved ones; other identification organizations and still others making declarations to the authorities.
The somber convoys of hearses and relatives passed through much of Acapulco en route to the cemetery, passing ransacked stores, debris-strewn streets and soldiers cutting down fallen trees.
PHOTO QUETZALLI NICTE-HA, REUTERS
People walk on a devastated street in Acapulco.
Lines at gas stations stretched for blocks, filled with citizens wanting to get fuel, and a few lucky families found essential groceries as a more organized relief operation took shape four days after the storm passed.
Soldiers and volunteers worked along Acapulco’s main tourist strip. They cut down palm trees and metal panels that had fallen to the ground. Cellphone signals have been partially recovered near some of the most luxurious hotels, and authorities have installed a station allowing people to charge their phones.
However, on the outskirts of the city, the neighborhoods remained in total chaos. The government presence observed in the tourist center was not visible in other sectors. With no signal, no water, and no food, citizens, young and old, trudged through mud and flooded streets to get to large warehouses where someone had found food.
Authorities said the military presence would rise to 15,000 people in the area, and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on the armed forces to establish checkpoints in the city to prevent thefts.
The president said the national power company told him that service had been restored to 55 percent of customers in the affected area, but more than 200,000 homes and businesses remained without power.
The federal civil protection agency recorded 220,000 homes damaged by the storm, he said.