Hurricane Agatha, downgraded to a tropical storm on Tuesday, left 11 people dead, around 20 missing and enormous damage, especially among vulnerable communities living in the hinterland on the Pacific side of Mexico, announced Wednesday the local government. The governor of Oaxaca (southwest) announced Tuesday evening eleven dead and 33 missing, before specifying that the deceased were among the 33 who are missing.
First hurricane of the season, Agatha hit the tourist coast of Oaxaca (Puerto Escondido, Huatulco, Zipolite) on Monday, very popular with American and French surfers. Some 5,240 tourists have been identified and the government of Oaxaca has said it is ready to shelter 26,800 people. But the hurricane hit above all the “heights of the coastal zone”, indicated the governor Alejandro Murat.
Two children died in San Pedro Pochutla
Most of the deaths and disappearances were recorded in villages isolated in the mountains, where roads were cut, as well as sometimes telephone communications. Among the victims are two children who lived in San Pedro Pochutla, about five kilometers from the coast.
A current carried away several people, according to the testimony of the father of one of the victims, Juan Antonio Rodriguez: “In addition to my son, a ten-year-old girl also died”, he told the AFP after the funeral. “It was six hours of water and strong winds, it was desperate,” Pochutla mayor Saymi Pineda told the continuous news channel Milenio. The elected official reported that damage had affected the infrastructure of Zipolite, known for its naturist beach, and that it was impossible to reach the part of the locality which is in a mountainous area. Rain and wind destroyed wooden and corrugated iron houses and caused the collapse of two bridges, according to the report of the local authorities on Wednesday.