More resources are arriving on Mexico’s battered Pacific coast as the death toll from Hurricane Otis continues to grow as searchers recover more bodies from Acapulco’s harbour and under storm debris.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Saturday that his opponents are trying to inflate the toll to damage him politically, but few expect the latest mark of 43 dead to be where it stops. Hundreds of families are still awaiting word about their missing loved ones.
Otis roared ashore early on Wednesday with devastating 165mph winds after strengthening so rapidly that people had little time to prepare.
Kristian Vera stood on an Acapulco beach on Saturday looking out towards dozens of sunken boats, including three of her own, all marked by floating buoys or just poking out of the water.
Despite losing her livelihood in Otis’s brutal pass through the area, the 44-year-old said she feels fortunate. Earlier in the day, she watched a body pulled from the water and saw families coming and going, looking for their loved ones.
Mexican authorities raised the official toll to 43 dead and 36 missing on Sunday.
But Ms Vera and others suggested that number is likely to grow, in part because of the number of people who rode out on boats during what had started as a tropical storm and in just 12 hours powered up into a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane.
Ms Vera took turns with four others swimming out with empty jugs for flotation to try to raise their sunken boats from the shallow harbour.
Leaning against a small wooden fishing boat like her own, tipped on its side on a beach strewn with rubbish and fallen trees, she explained that some of the people who died were either fishers caring for their boats or yacht captains who were told by their owners that they needed to make sure their boats were safe when Otis was still a tropical storm.
“That night I was so worried because I live off of this, it’s how I feed my kids,” Ms Vera said. “But when I began to feel how strong the wind was, I said, ‘Tomorrow I won’t have a boat, but God willing Acapulco will see another day.’”
On Saturday, security secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said in a recorded video message with Mr Lopez Obrador posted to the platform X that the probable cause of death for the victims was “suffocation by submersion”.
She said the victims had not yet been identified and investigations continue.
In Acapulco, government workers and volunteers cleared streets, fuel station queues snaked around several streets, and some lucky families found food essentials as a more organised relief operation took shape four days after the storm hit.
Military personnel and volunteers worked along Acapulco’s main tourist strip. They sliced through fallen palm trees and metal signs. Mobile phone signals were partially recovered near some of the most luxurious hotels, and authorities placed a charging station for people to charge their phones.
But on the periphery of the city, neighbourhoods remained in total chaos. The government presence found in the tourist centre was not visible in other areas.
With no signal, no water and no food, people young and old trudged through foot-deep mud and flooded streets to get to large warehouses someone had found full of food. They carried away bags of food and liquids.
Aid has been slow to arrive. The storm’s destruction cut off the city of nearly one million people for the first day, and because it intensified so quickly on Tuesday little to nothing had been staged in advance.
Authorities had the difficult task of searching for the dead and missing.
One military officer, who did not want to give his name, said searchers in his area had found at least six bodies and that his own unit had found one. It was difficult to find bodies because they were often covered in trees and other debris, he said.
Officials said the military presence would grow to 15,000 in the area, and Mr Lopez Obrador called on the armed forces to set up checkpoints in the city to avoid robberies.
The president said the national electric company has told him service has been restored to 55% of customers in the affected area, but more than 200,000 homes and businesses remain without power.
The federal civil defence agency believes 220,000 homes were damaged in the storm, he said.
