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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2007 
16 Missing as Mudslide Hits Village in Flood-Hit Mexico
 Pablo Perez - Agence France-Presse
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| | Rescue officials were searching for more than a dozen missing people after a landslide slammed into a rain-swollen river, wiping out a tiny hamlet in southern Mexico. (Associated Press) |
Villahermosa, Mexico - At least 16 people were missing and feared dead Tuesday after a mudslide struck a village in flood-hit southern Mexico, amid reports of rampant looting.
Heavy rain over the past days triggered a "severe" landslide that sent part of a hill in the southern state of Chiapas crashing into the Grijalva River, destroying dozens of houses, the Interior Ministry said in a statement Monday.
The landslide covered the community of San Juan de Grijalva with mud and water, the statement read.
"According to preliminary information ... at least 16 people are missing," it added, and officials said it was unlikely they would be found alive.
Another large landslide isolated nine other Chiapas communities near the border with neighboring state of Tabasco, authorities said.
The southern Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas were recovering from more than a week of non-stop heavy rain.
While the rain has stopped, several cities and towns remain flooded, and area rivers are still far above their normal levels.
At least 20,000 people were either stranded or refusing leave their flooded homes, Tabasco authorities said Monday.
They said said that only one person had died since the flooding began last week, though they were doing an autopsy on two bodies found in a neighborhood in the state capital Villahermosa to see if they were flood victims.
Regional press reports put the death toll at four.
In Villahermosa, hundreds of flood victims waved signs pleading for food and aid from their rooftops and attics. Most refused to leave, fearing looters.
"We have evacuated as many as we could, but some are reticent and we try to convince them to leave," said Jose Domingo Garcia, a local official coordinating the deployment of motor boats to affected homes in Villahermosa.
Gangs of thieves on motorboats have been raiding abandoned homes and stores at least since Saturday.
Some 50 people were detained over the weekend for allegedly stealing household items and stereos from stores and homes, local media reported.
In a bid to prevent further looting, Tabasco State Governor Andres Granier limited access to the city center to officially registered people.
Many of the flood victims complained of chaotic distribution of emergency aid, and television footage showed people fighting over food supplies in Villahermosa.
There was some relief amid the despair: water levels started to drop, drinking water was restored in parts of Villahermosa, and officials authorized schools to reopen in the few areas of the city of 750,000 that are not under water.
But the flood waters still reached up to two meters (6.6 feet) in some areas.
As a rescue team reached his home in a motor boat, a 67-year-old man argued he could not abandon his dogs and his turkeys, and even though water almost reached his second floor balcony. Rescuers eventually managed to convince him to go to a shelter.
Authorities say about half Tabasco's population of 2.1 million people have been affected by the floods, the worst in the southern Mexican state's history. |
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