A downgraded Ingrid struck northeastern Mexico Monday, sparking more evacuations after another storm hit the opposite coast in a rare one-two punch that has killed at least 21 people.
A downgraded Ingrid struck northeastern Mexico Monday, sparking more evacuations after another storm hit the opposite coast in a rare one-two punch that has killed at least 21 people.
Ingrid, which weakened from hurricane to tropical storm overnight, made landfall near La Pesca in the state of Tamaulipas, packing maximum sustained winds of 65 miles (100 kilometers) per hour and threatening to spark more floods and mudslides, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
Thousands of people were evacuated from towns on the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts over the weekend as Ingrid and Tropical Storm Manuel set off landslides and floods that damaged bridges and homes.
The last time the country was hit by two tropical storms in the span of 24 hours was in 1958, said National Weather Service coordinator Juan Manuel Caballero. But it was never hit by a hurricane and another storm at the same time.
More than 300 people were evacuated from small towns and several communities were cut off by rising waters in Tamaulipas. Authorities rescued two power company workers whose truck was dragged away by an overflowing river.
Manuel meanwhile dissipated overnight after unleashing floods that brought up to three-foot (one-meter) high water in the Pacific resort of Acapulco, dragging away cars and forcing some residents to take refuge on the top floors of homes.
Emergency personnel said rescue missions were complicated because the rising waters brought out crocodiles.
At least 11 of the 21 deaths were in Acapulco, including a family of six whose home was crushed by a landslide. Five others were killed when a wall collapsed in the port city.
The city's international airport was closed and the highway linking Mexico City to Acapulco was shut down due to landslides and flooding in the southwestern state of Guerrero. Authorities hoped to reopen both later Monday.
Authorities are working to create an air lift in the town of Pie de la Cuesta to transport people, Guerrero state Governor Angel Aguirre told Televisa television.
He said 40 towns were affected and more than 5,000 homes damaged by the storm, while shelters were opened to house some 20,000 people who have been evacuated.
National civil protection chief Luis Felipe Puente told a news conference late Sunday that at least 21 people have died.
In addition to the 11 dead in Acapulco, a woman was killed by a landslide elsewhere in Guerrero, while a man and a child died in a landslide in the state capital Chilpancingo, Puente said.
Guerrero state civil protection official Constantino Gonzales Vargas told AFP that six people died in a road accident due to slippery conditions, but Puente did not report these fatalities.
In the central state of Hidalgo, a nurse and her driver drowned when their car was swept away by an overflowing river, civil protection officials there said.
Another woman died in a landslide.
Three people, including a 16-year-old boy, were killed in a landslide in Tlatlauquitepec, a mountain town in the central state of Puebla.
Puente reported another storm-related death in the southern state of Oaxaca.
Ingrid forced several towns to cancel independence day celebrations.
State-run energy firm Pemex evacuated three oil platforms off the Gulf coast of the northeastern state of Tamaulipas and shut down 24 wells.
