ENSENADA, Mexico — At least five people have died in Mexico after Hurricane Simon and Tropical Storm Rachel lashed the country’s Pacific coast with flooding that swept away vehicles, downed power poles and inundated homes, The Guardian and CBC News reported.
In Baja California, the bodies of four people, including two children, were recovered in Ensenada after Rachel’s floodwaters tore through the coastal city. Six people remained missing, four in Ensenada and a father and son from San Felipe who went fishing Saturday, state civil protection coordinator Ignacio Lozoya said Monday evening, according to CBC.
Mexican military helicopters rescued 32 people, 22 of them foreigners, from a ranch in Ensenada, Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila said. A state security official said some were missionaries, including Germans and Americans. “We heard a loud noise that sounded like ocean waves, but really loud,” resident Johana Nuriulu said, according to CBC. About 14,000 federal and state personnel have been deployed across the state, the governor said.
Farther south, a 71-year-old man died when a wall collapsed in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, Gov. Evelyn Salgado said; Simon also damaged infrastructure in coastal towns including Acapulco, The Guardian reported. The hurricane has not made landfall. As of 5 a.m. MST Tuesday, Simon was a small Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph, about 95 miles west of Cabo Corrientes and creeping west-northwest at 3 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. A hurricane warning is in effect for Las Islas Marías and a hurricane watch from north of Escuinapa to Bahía Tempehuaya.
Rachel weakened into a post-tropical cyclone as it moved into Southern California, where unusually large waves tore apart a boardwalk in Long Beach, and its remnants caused weekend flooding in Las Vegas. Meteorologists say the strong El Niño is fueling more intense hurricanes in the eastern Pacific this season, The Guardian said.
Sources: The Guardian, CBC News, U.S. National Hurricane Center
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