“Acapulco has collapsed”: as Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, nicknamed “AMLO”, passed by, forced to complete his journey on foot in the mud to the seaside resort devastated by Hurricane Otis, residents told him part of their despair.
The head of state tried to travel by road on Wednesday afternoon to Acapulco, located about 400 kilometers from Mexico City, to assess the damage from the hurricane which cut off this city of some 780,000 people from the rest of the country. residents. The extent of the damage remains unknown in the absence of communications. But water, fallen rocks and uprooted trees hampered his convoy. He tried to continue in a military jeep, but the mud stopped him and he completed his journey to Acapulco on foot.
En route, the president was able to speak with residents who had gone looking for loved ones while all means of transport and communications were cut off in Acapulco. “We will try to open [the paths] as quickly as possible,” “AMLO” told journalists, accompanied in Acapulco by the ministers of defense, navy, public security and civil protection.
Residents in “state of shock”
The force 5 hurricane made landfall shortly after midnight local time (8 a.m. BST) on Wednesday, with wind gusts of up to 315 kilometers per hour, according to the Mexican government, before weakening as planned while progressing in the hinterland. It had formed very quickly in a few hours off the Pacific coast of Mexico.
Testimonies from residents show how much they were affected. “We felt it very strongly,” Israel Perez, a 21-year-old baker, told Agence France-Presse (AFP), who spoke of “the din of unleashed monsters.” “We were in shock because we couldn’t leave the house, many people were looking for shelter because of the strong flooding in the rivers,” he adds.
Eric Hernandez, 24, walks back to his neighboring village after accompanying a relative to an Acapulco clinic just as the hurricane arrived. “We were able to see how it (the hurricane) carried away the cars,” he explains to AFP, his feet in the mud. “The floor of the clinic was moving,” he continues, “we had to close the doors with what we found.” As he returned to his village, he saw apartments ransacked and people fighting to recover belongings.
During a press conference on Wednesday, “AMLO” announced that it still had no details on the toll from the hurricane and possible victims, as communications remained cut off with Acapulco. “We don’t have any information yet,” he said.
“We’re going to bring equipment,” he said. “The army is bringing machines, communications and transportation equipment, and we will try to reopen the highway [between Mexico City and Acapulco] as quickly as possible. »
