The famous seaside resort of Acapulco, in southwest Mexico, was partially devastated on Wednesday October 25 after the passage of a powerful hurricane during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, according to the first images transmitted by Mexican media . Residents and tourists find themselves cut off from the rest of the country. Hotels and shopping centers were heavily affected, according to the first images broadcast live by a Televisa group channel.
“The material damage is devastating. We have no water, we have no light, but we are safe,” Citlali Portillo, administrator of a tourist residence, told the channel. “The building was moving like it was an earthquake! “, she added.
Hurricane Otis, force 5, made landfall on Wednesday shortly after midnight local time, with winds of 250 km/h. It had formed very quickly in a few hours off the Pacific coast of Mexico. It has particularly affected tourists, who cannot reach their loved ones outside Acapulco due to the breakdown of telephone and internet communications.
Hotels destroyed and tourists stranded
“They won’t let us out. We are isolated. I hope someone from my family sees me so they know I’m okay,” testified Nely Palacios, a Mexican tourist. “We were about to rest. We were on the ninth floor of the Ritz hotel. The windows started shaking,” she said. She said many people were injured by broken windows.
The images show destroyed buildings and hotels reduced to their simple cement structures. Few people were driving late in the afternoon on central Miguel-Aleman Avenue in Acapulco, a city of 780,000 inhabitants.
Having left Mexico City in the middle of the day, the President of the Republic Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has still not been able to reach Acapulco by land. The highway is clogged with mud, water and uprooted trees, noted a team from Agence France-Presse which passed the presidential convoy. The president said he had no information yet about possible victims.
Three dead after the recent passage of Hurricane Norma
The city of Acapulco was hit on October 9, 1997 by Hurricane Paulina, which was a Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall. Paulina killed more than 200 people, one of the most serious natural disasters for Mexico outside of earthquakes.
Last week, Hurricane Norma killed three people a little further north. Norma made landfall twice, first in the Baja California peninsula, then in the state of Sinaloa.
Caught between the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico is exposed to hurricanes during the season which runs from May to October-November. A dozen depressions per year are likely to turn into more or less devastating hurricanes depending on their point of entry. The most powerful ever recorded, Patricia, in October 2015, with winds blowing at 325 kilometers per hour, however, only caused material damage because it entered the territory through an uninhabited mountainous area.
In September 2013, Hurricane Ingrid, in the Gulf, and Tropical Storm Manuel, in the Pacific, took the country by storm. “Their interaction constituted a historic phenomenon that had not occurred since 1958,” according to the authorities who recorded 157 deaths including victims of landslides.
