40 dead in Mexico landslides

Puebla, August 8

Landslides triggered by Tropical Storm Earl’s remnants have killed at least 40 people in Mexico as a new storm threatened the country’s Pacific coast.

Hardest-hit was the central state of Puebla, where 29 people died, including at least 15 minors, as landslides buried several homes in the state’s northern mountains, the local government said.

Earl hit Mexico as a storm on Thursday and eventually weakened to a tropical depression. Even in its weakened state Earl carried a deadly punch over the weekend. In the town of Huauchinango, the amount of rain that normally falls in a month came pouring down in just 24 hours, the Puebla government said Sunday.

Several highways in Puebla were ripped up, two bridges collapsed and power was knocked out in several towns. Puebla officials did not say how many people were missing, but they did say that the landslides and flooding left some 200 people homeless. Some 1,200 people were moved to shelters across Veracruz due to effects of the storm, officials said. — AFP