Hurricane Otis devastates the tourist coast of Acapulco
Hurricane Otis, a category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, has left a trail of destruction as it passes along the coast of Guerrero, on the Mexican Pacific coast, leaving 27 dead, four missing and more than a million people cut off between the cities of Acapulco and Tecpan de Galeana. The storm made landfall at 00:45 on Tuesday with wind gusts of 330 km/h, torrential rains and waves up to 10 meters high that exceeded the forecasts of the National Meteorological Service (which had predicted its magnitude as 'category 1'), as well as the reaction capacity of the emergency services and the local population. After several hours without the possibility of communicating with the outside world, images of the devastation have begun to arrive in dribs and drabs through social networks, revealing the true dimension of the tragedy.
The number of victims from the passage of Otis is still an unknown. Officially there is none, but rescue services have not yet managed to enter the most affected communities, whose roads have been blocked by floods, landslides and falling trees.. The worst part has been suffered by Acapulco, which was a tourist mecca of the country during the decades of the 70s and 80s, now in decline due to violence, and has woken up completely devastated.. Its main roads are blocked by the fall of palm trees, electricity poles, traffic lights and debris and most of its shops and establishments located on the beachfront have been destroyed.. The city has 250 hotels with a capacity of 20,000 rooms and, according to the Mexican Federation of Tourist Associations, there are currently around 100,000 tourists trapped in them, 95% of whom are nationals.
Hurricane category: classification and damage according to scale
As seen in images posted on social networks, the Princess Hotel, one of the most popular and exclusive hotels in the city, has suffered serious damage.. The storm has dragged several vehicles, furniture and debris to the lobby. Those responsible have confirmed that the damage affects 80% of the hotel's infrastructure.. Another of the iconic images of this disaster has been recorded in the Galerías Diana' shopping center, located on the second line of the beach, where the strong gusts of wind have torn off the walls and roof.. The city's port has also suffered a lot of damage, with many boats damaged and out of the water.. The balance of damage caused by Otis in the state of Guerrero is still uncertain, but the images coming from Acapulco suggest that they will be multimillion-dollar and will take a long time to repair.
AMLO tries to reach the disaster area by land
The Autopista del Sol, as the popular road that connects Mexico City and Acapulco is known and that thousands of capital residents use every weekend to go to the beach, has been interrupted to traffic at kilometer 360 due to falling rocks. and land. The president of the country himself, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), has had to turn back at this point, when trying to reach the disaster area by car, despite repeated calls from the authorities to the local population to avoid it.. In a video broadcast by Central de Noticias MX, AMLO is seen speaking with several workers who warn him that the road will take at least one more day to be cleared.
Given the impossibility of arriving by plane due to the floods, the Mexican president continues trying to reach Acapulco by land using secondary routes.. He is accompanied by his Security Cabinet, made up of the secretaries of National Defense, Navy and Citizen Security and Protection, as well as the commander of the National Guard and the national coordinator of Civil Protection.. The military vehicle in which they were traveling became stuck in the mud at kilometer 39, forcing the Mexican president to walk through the mud to change vehicles.. While López Obrador continues to avoid obstacles to reach Acapulco, the Government has activated the natural disaster relief plan, known as Plan DN-III-E, and has deployed the Army to the affected areas.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador walks through the mud in Acapulco.
The storm has caused a blackout that affects more than half a million people, according to data from the Federal Electricity Commission, which is working to restore the supply.. Another of the services that have been affected has been the earthquake warning system, which prevents the population from listening to preventive alerts.. In the hours after the hurricane passed, the coast of Guerrero has recorded at least 6 tremors with categories that vary between 3.3 and 4.5 degrees on the Richter scale.. The month of October has been especially active in terms of hurricanes. In addition to Otis, the Mexican coasts have suffered the impacts of Norma, category 2, Lidia, category 4, which left two dead and 5,000 homes affected, and Max, a tropical storm that left two other fatalities.
Looting taking advantage of Hurricane Otis in Acapulco.
In a period of two hours, while threatening to enter the coast of Acapulco as a category 1 hurricane, Otis transformed into a destructive category 5 phenomenon, an unprecedented growth that surprised experts.. Currently, it has already been confirmed as the strongest hurricane to have made landfall in the Mexican Pacific since records began.. After having swept the coast of Guerrero yesterday, it has currently been downgraded to a tropical cyclone as it continues to advance towards the interior of the country.. According to the National Meteorological Service, the storm will leave torrential rains and winds of 75 km/h in the states of Michoacán, Puebla, Morelos, Oaxaca and the State of Mexico, adjacent to the country's capital.. While waiting to know the final balance of damages and victims, as the rescue services manage to reach the most affected areas, the devastating images that are already emerging give a good account of the dimension of the tragedy.