Manuel re-intensified to hurricane strength, expected to make landfall again

by Adonai
The Watchers
September 19, 2013

Two tropical storms, Ingrid and Manuel, brought heavy rainfall and caused destruction and chaos throughout Mexico over the last couple of days. Current estimates are that 80 people have been killed. The forecasters are warning of more storms ahead as Manuel re-intensified to hurricane strength in the last few hours and is expected to make landfall again. Tens of thousands of people have been trapped in massive landslides.

Manuel first hit Mexico as tropical storm on Sunday, September 15, and intensified to hurricane strength on Wednesday, calmed down and re-intensified on Thursday.

On Monday, September 16, a major landslide hit small village of La Pintada in the country’s southern mountains. Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto said that at least 58 people are missing in the village, which has a population of about 400 people. He described the damage there as “catastrophic.”  It’s unclear how many people remain buried, he said.

More than half of La Pintada was demolished, few homes were left,” Maria del Carmen Catalan, a 27-year-old mother of three, said at a convention center that serves as a refuge for storm victims (GP).

Looting has broken out in the flooded Mexican beach resort of Acapulco as the government struggled to reach people cut off by flooding.

More than one million people have been affected and Acapulco’s airport terminal was under water, stranding tourists.

Dozens of homes in Tampico, one of the main Gulf ports north of Veracruz, were waterlogged when the Panuco River burst its banks, forcing evacuations.

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