2023-10-27 23:58:01
A day after Hurricane Otis made landfall in Acapulco and caused flooding, massive destruction and looting, authorities reported Thursday that 27 people died in the tourist city of almost a million inhabitants and four remain missing.
This was indicated by the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, when presenting an assessment of the serious damage to the hotel, road, electrical service and communications infrastructure caused by the hurricane’s passage through the southern state of Guerrero, and in particular for Acapulco.
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Many of the once-elegant beachfront hotels looked like toothless giants a day after the Category 5 hurricane blew out hundreds — if not thousands — of windows.
View of a building partially destroyed after the passage of Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Guerrero state, Mexico, on October 26, 2023. (Photo by RODRIGO OROPEZA/AFP).
Frustration towards the authorities seemed widespread. Although some 10,000 soldiers were mobilized to the area, they did not have the tools to clean the tons of mud and fallen trees from the streets. Hundreds of trucks from the government electricity company arrived in Acapulco early Wednesday, but did not know how to restore service while the downed lines were under meters of mud and water.
Jakob Sauczuk was staying with a group of friends at a beachfront hotel when Otis arrived. “We lay on the floor and some of us between the beds… We prayed a lot,” he said.
One of his friends showed reporters pictures of the hotel’s battered rooms, which had no windows. It looked as if someone had put the clothes, beds and furniture in a blender, leaving widespread destruction.
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Sauczuk complained that the hotel had given them no warning or a place to shelter.
Photograph of the facade of a building dismantled by Hurricane Otis in the resort of Acapulco, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. (EFE/ David Guzmán).
Pablo Navarro, an auto worker who was temporarily staying in a top-of-the-line hotel, thought he was going to die in his room on the 13th floor.
“I took refuge in the bathroom and fortunately the door held,” he said. “But there were rooms where the wind knocked down the windows and the door.”
Navarro stood outside a grocery and home goods store near the hotel zone Wednesday as hundreds of people carried everything from toilet paper to flat-screen televisions out of the muddy establishment, struggling to push loaded metal carts through the streets. muddy
“It’s out of control here,” he added.
People collect groceries in a looted supermarket after Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Guerrero state, Mexico, on October 26, 2023. (Photo by RODRIGO OROPEZA/AFP). People collect groceries in a looted supermarket after the passage of Hurricane Otis in Acapulco. (Photo by RODRIGO OROPEZA/AFP).
“It was very disastrous… it is unprecedented,” López Obrador said in his morning conference from the presidential palace as he lamented the victims and the devastation left behind by Otis, which destroyed 80% of the tourist city’s hotel infrastructure, hundreds of shops and streets and avenues.
The governor reported that among the fatalities there is a soldier who died when a wall fell on him and explained that among the missing there are members of the Navy.
López Obrador said that the suspension of the telephone service still persists and that work is being done to enable the runways of the civil and military airports of Acapulco where an air bridge will be established for the transfer of personnel and supplies and food that he specified will be handled directly by the military.
The 69-year-old president traveled by land to Acapulco on Wednesday to personally supervise the damage caused by the hurricane.
Isabel de la Cruz, a resident of Acapulco, was trying to move forward with a cart loaded with diapers, instant noodles and toilet paper to help her family after losing the tin roof of their house and all important documentation in the hurricane.
A looter carries a cart full of goods stolen from a supermarket after Hurricane Otis in Acapulco. (Photo by FRANCISCO ROBLES/AFP).
“When are the authorities going to look at the people?” he said.
Inside one establishment, National Guard troops allowed looters to take perishable items such as food, but made futile efforts to prevent them from taking household appliances, while outside some loaded refrigerators onto taxis.
Several people walk with looted objects in a shopping center after Hurricane Otis passed through Acapulco, Mexico. (AP / Marco Ugarte).
It took authorities almost all of Wednesday to partially reopen the main highway that connects Acapulco with the state capital, Chilpancingo, and Mexico City. This allowed the arrival of dozens of emergency vehicles, personnel and trucks with supplies.
Despite the complaints and frustration that prevails among the residents, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador affirmed on Thursday that the authorities were working quickly to restore the electrical service, which still remains suspended in much of the area affected by the hurricane, and The recovery of access to Acapulco’s main highway was highlighted as a very important achievement.
The state electricity company reported on Wednesday that some 500,000 users were left without electricity and that only 40% of customers had recovered service.
Acapulco Diamante, an area on the beach full of hotels, restaurants and other tourist attractions, seemed almost completely submerged in images recorded by drones and posted online by Foro TV on Wednesday afternoon, with avenues and bridges completely hidden under a huge lake. of brown water.
Large buildings had their walls and roofs completely or partially torn off. Dislodged solar panels, cars and debris littered the lobby of a particularly hard-hit hotel. People walked in waist-deep water in some areas, while in others soldiers removed fallen palm leaves and debris from the pavement.
A couple walks through the rubble of a street affected by Hurricane Otis. (EFE/ David Guzmán).
Alicia Galindo, a 28-year-old stylist from San Luis Potosí, in the center of the country, was one of the lucky ones who received a call. Her parents and brother were staying at the Princess Hotel to attend an international mining conference when Otis made landfall early Wednesday with winds of 270 kilometers per hour (165 miles per hour).
They told him that the worst part had been between 1 and 3 in the morning, when “windows began to fall, floors broke, mattresses flew, doors fell, walls were broken, they were literally left in the void,” he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Luckily, they escaped unharmed, he added.
But Galindo still had not heard from her boyfriend, who was attending the same conference but was staying in another hotel.
Otis took many by surprise Tuesday when it quickly upgraded from a tropical storm to a major hurricane as it moved toward the coast.
“It’s one thing to have a Category 5 hurricane make landfall when you expect a strong cyclone, but to have it happen when you don’t expect it to be severe is a nightmare,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
Acapulco is at the foot of steep mountains where luxury homes and very poor neighborhoods coexist with impressive views of the Pacific. It was once a destination for Hollywood stars for its nightlife, sport fishing and cliff diving shows, but in recent years it has been taken over by organized crime, driving many foreign tourists to the Caribbean waters of Cancun and the Riviera Maya or to beaches further south in the state of Oaxaca.
López Obrador recalled that Otis was a more powerful hurricane than Paulina, which devastated parts of Acapulco in 1997 and left more than 300 dead.
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