Miguel Angel Villegas Escobar says more than a dozen people were killed in his region, which remains cut off from the rest of Mexico’s Hidalgo state, after torrential rains, overflowing rivers and mud washed out the area’s bridges and roads.
Villegas Escobar, regional director of primary education in the village of Chahuaco in the landlocked state of Hidalgo, said via WhatsApp voice messages that entire families in the region had been swept away by widespread flooding caused by rains that fell over four days in five Gulf Coast and central states last week.
He said he knew 15 people in the municipality of Tianguistengo – which includes several villages such as Chahuaco – who were killed in the flood and buried in mud.
Two people are still missing from the neighboring village of Tlacolula, which is also part of Tianguistengo and was hit hardest, said Villegas Escobar. Most of the village’s houses were destroyed, he said in voice messages from Chahuaco, which is about 250 kilometers northeast of Mexico City.
Villegas Escobar said the people of Chahuaco followed old ways and packed supplies onto pack animals and horses to bring aid to Tlacolula residents. “We went there to help,” he said.
Dozens dead, thousands of houses damaged
The storms left 64 people dead and 65 missing, according to data released by Mexican authorities at a news conference on Monday.
Heavy rains fell between October 6 and 9, flooding rivers, ravines and ditches, knocking out power, triggering landslides and submerging highways and roads in the states of Veracruz, Hidalgo, Puebla, Querétaro and San Luis Potosi.
“The federal government, state and local governments were on the scene to assist the affected population,” said Laura Velázquez, national coordinator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who released the figures during the press conference.
🔴 The Chiquito River changed course in Chapultepec de Huauchinango, Puebla.
The water washed away a house, a tree and trash, causing new flooding.pic.twitter.com/Fa47ucIO72
According to the government, the states of Veracruz, Hidalgo and Puebla were hardest hit by the devastation, which killed 56 people and affected more than 100 communities.
Images circulating on social media and in local news reports showed streets turned into torrents of water and mud, people crowded on rooftops and roads washed out by landslides. Local media reported that at least one police officer drowned during a rescue attempt.
According to local media reports, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government and the governors of the three hardest-hit states, all of whom belong to the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party, have been criticized by opposition politicians and the public for their slow response and failure to issue warnings or preemptive evacuations.
On Monday morning, a group of residents staged a silent protest in front of the National Palace in Mexico City’s historic center, holding signs calling on the president to help the people of Texcatepec, Veracruz to a report in CMX Noticias.
Sheinbaum said at the news conference that preliminary government figures showed more than 100,000 homes had been damaged or destroyed by the rains.
She said a helicopter airlift was now helping about 60 communities in Veracruz, Hidalgo and Puebla that were stranded due to road and highway flooding. Some of these communities have small populations of about 1,000 people, Sheinbaum said.
“First we open federal highways … then we enter state highways,” she said. “From the beginning, we determined that this was the most urgent way to reach these places.”
Sheinbaum said she sensed the frustration of residents suffering from the devastation caused by the heavy rains.
The president was faced with questions A video that emerged on Sunday shows frustrated citizens in Poza Rica, Veracruz, confronted her while she was viewing the devastation and claimed that several university students were missing.
“I personally got out of the vehicle to listen to the people and they told us they needed more help, more equipment … and support for the families,” Sheinbaum said during the press conference.
“I explained to them that more help would come…that no family would be left helpless.”
Authorities were monitoring Pacific coast systems
The intensity of the rains appeared to surprise authorities.
Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, the secretary of the Navy, said authorities were monitoring a potential tropical cyclone named Raymond and a hurricane named Priscilla developing off the country’s Pacific coast early last week.
But at the same time, a low pressure system that formed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Veracruz on Oct. 8 collided with a cold front descending from Texas, causing the sudden burst of rain, Morales Ángeles said.
The region’s rainy season has ended, rivers and water tables are at their limit and slopes have already been weakened by previous rains, creating the conditions for massive flooding, Morales Ángeles said.
“There was no scientific condition, meteorologically speaking, that could have told us that the rainfall would be of this magnitude,” Sheinbaum said.
The municipality of Tianguistengo has been listed as a priority area by the Mexican government.
Villegas Escobar said the military had contacted the region with two helicopters and was beginning to rebuild roads and bridges.
Miguel Angel Villegas Escobar, regional director of primary education in the village of Chahuaco, describes the destruction of the school in the village of Tlacolula.
In a video shared with CBC News: Villegas Escobar called on Hidalgo Governor Julio Ramón Menchaca Salazar and local deputies and senators to come to their aid Tuscolula.
In the video, he shows the village’s primary school, now a ruined wreck of mud, bricks and logs, in a scene reminiscent of the aftermath of a tsunami.
“The people here in Tlacolula need a lot of help,” he said.
