Two people died, a minor and a woman, due to a landslide in his house, a sinkhole on the Acapulco-Pinotepa national federal highway, hundreds of fallen trees, downed power poles and telephone outages, this is the preliminary assessment after the passage of Hurricane John, a category 3, on the Costa Chica of the state of Guerrero, in southern Mexico.
In addition, hundreds of homes were affected due to their the tin roofs were destroyed Due to strong gusts of wind, at least a hundred palm trees collapsed on La Bocana beach, in the municipality of Marquelia, where the hurricane entered on Monday night.
During a tour, EFE verified that in various municipalities in the region, after strong winds between 190 and gusts of 220 kilometers, hundreds of electric poles were observed falling on the federal highway, causing the lack of light recorded since. Monday night, in addition to the mobile network, cell phones and at home. In addition, a large number of fallen trees were observed on the federal highway that leads to Oaxaca, which is why the staff of the Secretariat of Comprehensive Risk Management and Civil Protection is working to remove them, as well as to repair the sinkhole in the municipality of Cuauhtémoc.
In the meantime, Residents of La Bocana beach said they experienced “hours of great fear”having never experienced a hurricane like this, they even reported not having been alerted in time by the municipal authorities. José Luis Hernández, a fisherman and tourist service provider, lost his two businesses, a restaurant and a gazebo, that is, all of his assets. “What I experienced was a surprise, we did not expect this storm, this hurricane, the truth is that we were a little scared but, thank God, we are all fine at home, although I stayed up late and nothing happened, fortunately,” he commented. He explained that “everything was lost, everything, the roof, the house, everything exploded, we treated the blows and took care of the children.”
While Felipa Hernández, another affected resident who lives with eight other people in her house, acknowledged that In a few hours, they lost everything, However, what we experienced on Monday night and early Tuesday morning was the worst. “Last night it was very ugly, you could hear the wind, the gusts, it was horrible; you thought the sea was rising, there was a power cut, the poles fell and it was chaos because you couldn’t go out,” he said. He added that at one point he thought it would be a disaster on the beach after the hurricane, because there would be many deaths, especially because there were elderly people, single mothers, pregnant women.
For her part, the governor of Guerrero, Evelyn Salgado, confirmed that after the rains, the road repair works, reinstallation of electrical poweras well as a census of those affected. He said that in the case of Acapulco, where there were rumors of looting and robberies in department stores and self-service stores, it was just that, since the security authorities implemented an operation to prevent any theft, although he acknowledged that there were some attempts, but that did not happen anymore.
The cyclone surprised because At first, the SMN only predicted that it would be a tropical storm. It would weaken to a depression upon landfall on Wednesday, but would intensify, accelerate and change course on Monday, when it would strengthen into a Category 3 hurricane and hit the Guerrero region of Costa Chica. Due to John’s passage, the Mexican government has deployed more than 18,000 military personnel and other agencies to the Costa Chica region of Guerrero, where damage to roads and isolated municipalities is reported.
The affected area received almost a year ago, on October 25, the impact of Hurricane Otis, which left more than 50 dead and broke the record for the intensification of a cyclone in the Mexican Pacific. John is the second cyclone of the Pacific season to make landfall in Mexico, where Storm Ileana hit the northwestern state of Sinaloa last week, causing minor damage.
While three hurricanes hit Mexico from the Atlantic: Hurricane Beryl and Storm Chris, which left a blank toll in July, and Storm Alberto in June, when it left six dead in Nuevo León, a state on Mexico’s northern border.
