MADRID, 1 (EUROPE PRESS)
At least eleven people have died, including two children aged three and eleven, and 21 have disappeared due to hurricane ‘Ágatha’ in Oaxaca, Mexico.
“We already have 32 missing people and we can preliminarily recognize that of those 32 people, eleven have lost their lives,” said the governor of Oaxaca, Alejandro Murat, in an interview on the radio station Radio Formula.
Murat has explained that the most insecure areas are the rivers due to the risk of overflowing and “the high areas” due to the detachment of the slopes.
Likewise, the governor has affirmed that the strength of the hurricane has been reduced and has become “a low depression.”
Previously, the Civil Protection coordinator of San Pedro Pochutla, Eusebio Jarquín, confirmed the death of two minors, aged eleven and three, in the community of Corcovado Petaca, as reported by the newspaper ‘El Universal’.
“Unfortunately they sought the support of some people in a house, which looked quite safe, it was located in the riverbed, the river knocked down the walls of this house and flooded the house, where around 17 people were,” Jarquín said. .
The head of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, Adelfo Regino Montes, reported the death of two people after a landslide in Xanaguía, Sierra Sur.
“In San Carlos Yautepec, the municipal authority has reported the disappearance of a person when he was dragged by the current of the river in Asunción Tlacolulita,” Oaxaca Civil Protection said in a statement.
“In San Miguel del Puerto, Huatulco, the overflow of the Copalita River has also been reported, and the dragging of four adults, and in San Mateo Piñas a missing person has also been reported due to a landslide,” the agency added.
Likewise, the authorities reported that two people have been trapped by a landslide on a slope.
Regarding the material damage, Civil Protection pointed out that several towns are cut off due to landslides and flooding of the rivers, for which members of the Army, Firefighters and Navy were helping the residents of the affected towns.
The first hurricane of the season is moving northeast on land at 13 km/h, with maximum sustained winds of 65 km/h and gusts of 75 km/h.
The National Meteorological Service (SMN) of the National Water Commission (Conagua), in coordination with the National Hurricane Center, maintains a prevention zone for hurricane effects from Salina Cruz to Lagunas de Chacahua, Oaxaca; hurricane watch zone from Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, to Barra de Tonalá, Chiapas, and tropical storm prevention zone from Lagunas de Chacahua, Oaxaca, to Punta Maldonado, Guerrero, and from Salina Cruz, Oaxaca to Boca de Pijijiapan, Chiapas .