TIANGUISTENGO, Mexico (AP) – A river winding through the mountains of central Mexico suddenly turned into an overwhelming wall of water over the past week, effectively erasing the village of Chapra, population 400, from the map.
Deadly floods and landslides have cut off 300 towns in central-eastern Mexico from the outside world, forcing residents to scream, alert riverbank neighbors and frantically seek shelter.
On Tuesday, thousands of soldiers and workers scrambled to rescue civilians and break road blockades.
“There’s nothing left. We wiped out the houses, we wiped out the bridge. All that’s left is the church and the warehouse that served as an evacuation center,” said Stephanie Ramirez, 21, who was part of a group of elderly people, women and children who stumbled from a rescue helicopter on Tuesday.
The government has confirmed that at least 64 people have died as a result of the heavy rains. Dozens of people remain missing, and officials warn that the full extent of the devastation in remote towns with anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand residents remains unknown. The rains were caused by the convergence of two tropical cyclones off Mexico’s west coast and came at the end of an unusually heavy rainy season, flooding rivers and weakening hillsides.
Ramirez and his grandmother waited for several days for help before evacuating. The rest of the family and dozens of neighbors are still waiting to be evacuated. With the threat of more rain, they took shelter on a nearby crumbling hillside next to a still swollen river.
“We have to get them out. They’re always in danger there,” Ramirez said.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that one of her government’s priorities was to open roads, “secure bridges in the sky, food supplies, water and check the living conditions of each person.”
Thousands of military personnel and civilians were working tirelessly on these efforts Tuesday, but in Chapra residents decided to organize on their own. Ramirez said they called their relatives in the United States and “they were the ones who made arrangements to get us out of there little by little.”
With the help of residents of the nearby town of Tianguistengo, a private air bridge was put into operation, using rented helicopters to evacuate groups of about six people at a time. Meanwhile, other residents organized bags of essential goods on foot (along with some soldiers) to nearby villages that were still cut off.
“It would take six or seven hours to walk, but we want people to know that we are working… and that we care about their situation as well,” said Neptali Rodriguez, a local resident.
The worst-hit states are Veracruz, Hidalgo, and Puebla. In Hidalgo state alone, where about half of the isolated villages are located, around 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by river flooding and landslides. In Veracruz state, where at least 29 people died, rainfall reached 24 inches in just four days. Veracruz Governor Rocio Nare said more than 300,000 people were affected in his state alone.
Civil servants went door-to-door Tuesday in cities such as Pozarica, Veracruz state, where the Cazones River, which flooded on Friday, reached a height of 13 feet (4 meters) in some areas. They were asking residents if anyone was missing.
As of Tuesday, 67 people were still missing, according to the National Civil Protection Coordination Agency.
Health teams had begun fumigation of the affected areas to prevent an outbreak of dengue fever, which is spread by mosquitoes.
Poza Rica resident Roberto Olvera said an alarm at the refinery warned of rising water levels.
“It was scary. A lot of people in the neighborhood couldn’t escape,” he said. The flooding also left behind a black, oily residue that appeared to have come from nearby oil and gas facilities, covering trees and roofs.
Floodwaters reached 2 meters (6.5 feet) and damaged dozens of health centers, including the health center in Alamo, Veracruz state, where all equipment was destroyed. Local health director Marti Batres said medical staff are currently working outdoors.
Thousands of soldiers and rescue teams are searching for missing people and delivering relief supplies, while helicopters are transporting supplies to isolated areas and private construction companies are helping to reopen major roads.
Scheinbaum said there were sufficient resources to respond and the government “will spare no expense during this emergency.”
____
Associated Press photojournalist Felix Marquez contributed to this report from Poza Rica, Mexico.
Follow AP coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america.
