MANZANILLO/PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Hurricane Jova flooded the streets of Mexico's main Pacific port with torrential rain on Wednesday, inundating popular beach resorts and killing at least four people in mudslides.
While Jova ravaged the coast, a tropical depression to the southeast prompted thousands of evacuations in Mexico as well as flooding and mudslides that have killed 18 in Central America since the start of the week.
Streets in the port of Manzanillo were underwater, coastal communities flooded and roads blocked due to fallen trees and washouts after Jova, now a tropical depression, hit the coast as a Category 2 hurricane late on Tuesday.
Manzanillo, Mexico's busiest port for cargo, remained closed to traffic despite the storm easing. Some streets in the city were under 3 feet (1 metre) of water.
“The streets of Manzanillo are impassable, as are the highways connecting Manzanillo with the south of Jalisco,” national Red Cross coordinator Isaac Oxenhaut said.
Highways leading northwest from Manzanillo along the coast were closed and the beach towns of Cihuatlan, Melaque and Barra de Navidad were swamped with floodwaters, the Red Cross said.
Two people died in Cihuatlan in Jalisco state when their house collapsed in a mudslide.
In the village of Jose Maria Morelos northwest of the port, a woman and her son died when a deluge of mud hit their home.
“I think they asphyxiated,” Alfredo Juan de Dios, 65, said of his sister-in-law Marisol and her young son Juan Pablo after the mud brought down a wall of their house, trapping them. “I have never seen rain like this. It's caused mayhem,” he added.
Outside his shattered home, Marisol's husband wept as rescue workers covered his son's body with a white sheet.
The force of the winds flipped metal roofs off homes and cut power supplies to 107,000 users in the area.
In Melaque, musician Roberto Orozco said he was forced to abandon his home for higher ground. “I got back to find my stove and my fridge swimming,” said Orozco, 52. “We're really sad. We lost everything.”
In a statement yesterday, Boston-based AIR Worldwide says the exposure value to this sparsely populated region “is relatively low.” After conducting further review of the storm's path, AIR will issue a loss estimate if it is warrented.
Update, 11:26 a.m.EDT: additional reporting on AIR Worldwide statement added by NU Online News Service.
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