ACAPULCO, Mexico: Tropical Storm Manuel drenched Mexico’s Pacific coast on Sunday, leaving at least nine people dead, while Hurricane Ingrid forced thousands to evacuate the east coast ahead of an expected landfall.
The twin storms soaked huge swaths of the country in the east and west, causing rivers to swell, damaging bridges and threatening to cause more havoc as they neared the coasts.
In the southwestern state of Guerrero, six people died on Saturday when their van’s driver lost control due to a lack of visibility and a slippery road on their way to the resort city of Acapulco, civil protection official Constantino Gonzales Vargas told AFP.
Landslides killed three other people in the municipalities of Acapulco, Atlamajalcingo and Malinaltepec, he said.
The port of Acapulco was closed to navigation and issued a warning against recreational use on beaches ahead of the hurricane’s strong winds. Two men who sailed away were reported missing.
Guerrero’s civil protection services reported damage to at least a dozen homes in two towns in the Costa Chica region due to swollen rivers, and 50 more homes were at risk of being swept away in the flooding and mudslides.
Manuel was moving almost parallel to the southwestern coast, at 10 miles per hour (17 kilometers per hour), packing maximum winds of 70 mph (110 kph), according to the US National Hurricane Center.
It was located some 45 miles (70 kilometers) from the town of Mazanillo, in the western state of Colima.
On the opposite coast, Hurricane Ingrid was lumbering across the Gulf of Mexico and had already forced authorities to evacuate more than 6,000 people after the rivers Tecolutla and Panuco overflowed their banks, Governor Javier Duarte said.
At least 20 bridges were damaged during rains in the north of the state that cut off 71 communities, authorities said.
The storm is expected to make landfall early Monday.
The hurricane center said Ingrid is expected to dump 10 to 15 inches (25-38 centimeters) of rain over a large part of eastern Mexico, with as many as 25 inches possible in some areas, particularly ones with mountainous terrain.
“These rains are likely to result in life-threatening flash floods and mudslides,” the center said in a 1500 GMT bulletin.
At that point the storm was 135 miles (220 kilometers) east of the town of Tampico, and moving at 6 mph (9 kph).
US forecasters said Ingrid is expected to trigger a storm surge of as much as five feet (1.5 meters), with large and destructive waves.
Ingrid, the second hurricane of the 2013 season, was packing top winds of 75 mph (120 kph) in the last update from the hurricane center.
The Mexican government issued a hurricane watch from north of La Pesca to Bahia Algodone.
A hurricane warning was also in effect from Cab Rojo to La Pesca, meaning that hurricane conditions where expected in that area within 36 hours.
Ingrid weakened a bit Sunday morning but could gain strength again before making landfall.
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