Five days after Hurricane Otis devastated Mexico’s Pacific coast on Wednesday morning, the preliminary death toll stood at 48 as of Sunday, September 29, according to Mexico’s Civil Protection Agency.
In a statement, the agency said 43 victims were in the beach town of Acapulco and five in Coyuca de Benitez. The governor of Guerrero state previously said 36 people were missing. These are the first figures from the towns near the coastal city, where the other deaths and the most property damage have been recorded so far.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry reported that 263 foreigners were in the port at the time of the hurricane – including 34 Americans, 18 French and 17 Cubans – and were deemed safe. They all left Acapulco.
According to media reports, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador flew over the disaster area on Sunday and spoke to those responsible for relief operations.
The number of casualties was low because the passage of the hurricane caused power and telecommunications outages, which were gradually restored over the weekend.
Wind speeds of 270 kilometers per hour
From a simple tropical storm, Otis developed into a hurricane with maximum strength 5 in just six hours off the Pacific coast of Mexico. With wind speeds of 270 kilometers per hour, it made landfall and devastated the seaside resort, which has around 780,000 inhabitants and lives mainly from tourism . The hurricane then weakened as it moved further inland. However, heavy rains continued in the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, two of the poorest in the country.
The speed at which the hurricane formed left residents no time to shelter their homes or stock up on water and food.
The federal government has counted that more than 273,000 houses and hundreds of hotels suffered more or less severe damage. In addition, 12 highways and streets remained closed. “We are making progress in the effective distribution of humanitarian assistance,” he assured Evelyn Salgadothe governor of the state of Guerrero on X (formerly Twitter).
After the reopening of the airport and the resumption of road traffic, the distribution of aid from the government and NGOs began on Friday afternoon.
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According to Enki Research, a consulting firm specializing in natural phenomena, the cost of the damage caused by Otis is around $15 billion (14.2 billion euros).
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