Residents began running perilously short of food and water in Mexico's southern Gulf Coast on Sunday after a week of devastating floods that destroyed or damaged the homes of as many as half a million people.
Authorities said two more bodies were found on Sunday floating in brackish waters covering much of the region. If confirmed the deaths were caused by the flooding, the disaster's toll would stand at 10.
"We are seeing one of the worst natural catastrophes in the history of the country," President Felipe Calderon said in Tabasco State. "Not only because of the size of the area affected, but because of the number of people affected."
PHOTO: AFP
Since rivers first began to burst their banks on Oct. 28, the homes of an estimated half a million people have been damaged or destroyed and at least that many more people have been affected by severed utilities and transportation corridors, the government said. In neighboring Chiapas State, four bridges and 290km of roads were washed out.
"People are fighting over food and water, and the lack of electricity and running water are making life in the city impossible," said Martha Lilia Lopez, who has been handing out food to victims on behalf of a nonprofit foundation she heads.
Many in Tabasco remained camped out on the rooftops or upper floors of their flooded homes to guard their possessions from looters, but their resolve was running out -- along with water, food and other supplies.
"I would prefer to be in my house instead of a shelter, but we ran out of everything," said Patricio Bernal, 53, who was evacuated by boat along with his wife from their home in the state capital Villahermosa.
"We spent days without food. We thought we were going to die," said Marta Vidal, 47, who was taken to safety by helicopter.
Daniel Montiel Ortiz, who oversaw helicopter rescue efforts for the federal police, said rescuers were now focused on "selective evacuations" -- primarily of sick people -- and delivering badly needed supplies to isolated communities still surrounded by water.
Some desperate residents in Villahermosa broke into shuttered stores and took food and household goods, and police reported detaining about 50 people for looting over the last couple of days. But Ortiz called those "isolated incidents."
After water covered about 80 percent of Tabasco's already swampy coastal territory, authorities struggled to calculate the damages. The Social Development Department estimated that the homes of 400,000 to 500,000 people were damaged or destroyed.
River levels began to recede slightly on Sunday, but Villahermosa remained largely flooded. Health authorities reported cases of eye, skin, intestinal and respiratory infections, but no mass outbreak of waterborne diseases that many had feared.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS