XALAPA – Hurricane Grace has killed at least eight people, including five children from the same family, as it tore through eastern Mexico yesterday, causing floods, mudslides and damage to homes and businesses.
The storm has made landfall in Mexico for a second time near Tecolutla in Veracruz, as a major Category Three storm with winds of 125kph.
It later fizzled out as it moved inland over the central highlands, but not before causing widespread damage.
In the Veracruz state capital, Xalapa, streets have turned into muddy brown rivers.
Seven people died in Xalapa, and one more in the city of Poza Rica, Veracruz Governor Cuitlahuac Garcia told a news conference.
The victims include a mother and five of her children, who were buried when a hillside collapsed on their small home.
“I heard a bang on the roof and I went out to look,” said their father, Adan Moreno, who witnessed the tragedy.
“I heard the earth collapsing. The hill was swept away and they were all down there – my wife and six children,” he told AFP with a breaking voice.
He dug through the mud with the help of some relatives, but only one child has been pulled out alive.
His wife and five other children, including a 2-week-old baby girl, did not survive.
It’s destroyed
The streets of Tecolutla, home to about 24,000 people, have been littered with fallen trees, signs and roof panels. Esteban Dominguez’s beachside restaurant is reduced to rubble.
“It was many years’ effort,” he said.
“Over there was my house, but it’s destroyed. I’m left with no roof or furniture,” he said.
Many homes in the region are left without electricity.
Hurricane Grace has dissipated as it churned inland, drenching Mexico City, but can develop into a new cyclone next week in the Pacific, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
The Mexican authorities remain on alert due to the threat of rivers overflowing and landslides, mainly in Veracruz.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has offered his condolences to the families of the victims.
Nearly 8,000 civil defence members, soldiers and electricity board workers have been put on standby ready to tackle the aftermath of the storm, he said on Friday night.
Authorities in Veracruz state said they have prepared 200 storm shelters and urged residents to hunker down in safe places.
They closed most highways in Veracruz, which is crossed by numerous rivers.
Fishermen affected
In preparation for the storm, workers along the coast have boarded up windows to protect stores, fishermen have brought their boats ashore and residents have secured their homes after stocking up on canned food and water.
“We will spend many days without fishing, about almost a week,” said Isabel Pastrana Vazquez, head of Veracruz’s federation of fisheries cooperatives.
“About 35,000 fishermen will be affected because we can’t go out,” he said.
In Casitas, a small tourist town on the coast, fisherman Domingo Hernandez said that the roof of his home has been ripped off.
“The whole sheet was blown off. I was there holding it,” he said, expressing relief that his boat was not damaged, too.
The hurricane has already lashed Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula earlier in the week, forcing thousands of tourists to hunker down in shelters but blowing through with no loss of life. – AFP, August 22, 2021
