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Updated: 5:47 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013 | Posted: 5:46 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013

Mexico floods kill 80, thousands stranded

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Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
Hundreds of stranded tourists gather around a Mexican Air Force jet as they wait to be evacuated, at the air base in Pie de la Cuesta, near Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. With roads blocked by landslides, rockslides, floods and collapsed bridges, Acapulco was cut off from road transport after Tropical Storm Manuel made landfall on Sunday. The airport as well, was flooded. Emergency flights began arriving in Acapulco to evacuate at least 40,000 mainly Mexican tourists stranded in the resort city. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
Hundreds of stranded tourists arrive at a military airbase in hopes of getting a seat on a Mexican Air Force jet flight, in Pie de la Cuesta, near Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. With roads blocked by landslides, rockslides, floods and collapsed bridges, Acapulco was cut off from road transport after Tropical Storm Manuel made landfall on Sunday. The airport as well, was flooded. Emergency flights began arriving in Acapulco to evacuate at least 40,000 mainly Mexican tourists stranded in the resort city. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
People stand on the rooftop of a home in a flooded neighborhood after Tropical Storm Manuel pounded Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. The death toll rose to 47 Tuesday from the unusual one-two punch of a tropical storm and a hurricane, hitting Mexico at nearly the same time. Authorities scrambled to get help into, and stranded tourists out of, the cutoff resort city. (AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
A young boy sits on the tarmac of a military airbase in hopes of getting a seat on a Mexican Air Force jet flight, in Pie de la Cuesta, near Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. With roads blocked by landslides, rockslides, floods and collapsed bridges, Acapulco was cut off from road transport after Tropical Storm Manuel made landfall on Sunday. The airport as well, was flooded. Emergency flights began arriving in Acapulco to evacuate at least 40,000 mainly Mexican tourists stranded in the resort city. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
A child lies with his dog at a shelter set up for people affected by Tropical Storm Manuel in the city of Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2013. The death toll rose to 47 Tuesday from the unusual one-two punch of a tropical storm and a hurricane hitting Mexico at nearly the same time. Authorities scrambled to get help into, and stranded tourists out of, the cutoff resort city. (AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
Friends and relatives stand next to caskets containing the remains of members of the Gallegos family after a landslide buried a home on the outskirts of the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, Mexico, Monday, Sept. 16, 2013. Twin storms, Manuel and Ingrid, left scenes of havoc on both of Mexico's coasts. (AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
A low income neighborhood is covered by floodwaters caused by Tropical Storm Manuel in Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. The death toll rose to 47 Tuesday from the unusual one-two punch of a tropical storm and a hurricane hitting Mexico at nearly the same time. Authorities scrambled to get help into, and stranded tourists out of, the cutoff resort city of Acapulco. (AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
Villagers stand next to a bound and blindfolded crocodile, that escaped from a crocodile farm during the floods caused by Tropical storm Manuel in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. The death toll rose to 47 Tuesday from the unusual one-two punch of a tropical storm and a hurricane hitting Mexico at nearly the same time. Authorities scrambled to get help into, and stranded tourists out of, the cutoff resort city of Acapulco. (AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
A tourist holding her dog stands on the tarmac of a military airbase in hopes of getting a seat on a Mexican Air Force jet flight, in Pie de la Cuesta, near Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. With roads blocked by landslides, rockslides, floods and collapsed bridges, Acapulco was cut off from road transport after Tropical Storm Manuel made landfall on Sunday. The airport as well, was flooded. Emergency flights began arriving in Acapulco to evacuate at least 40,000 mainly Mexican tourists stranded in the resort city. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
People stand next to a flooded road in the city of Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2013. The death toll rose to 47 Tuesday from the unusual one-two punch of a tropical storm and a hurricane, hitting Mexico at nearly the same time. Authorities scrambled to get help into, and stranded tourists out of, the cutoff resort city. (AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
People stand at the entrance to the badly damaged Agua de Obispo tunnel that connects Acapulco and Chilpancingo, near Chilpancingo, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. As many as 60,000 tourists, many of whom traveled from Mexico City for a long holiday weekend, found themselves stranded in Acapulco, with the airport flooded and highways blocked by landslides and water caused by Tropical Storm Manuel. (AP Photo/Alejandrino Gonzalez)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
People stand next to a collapsed bridge over the Huacapa River near the town of Petaquillas, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. Twin storms left scenes of havoc on both of Mexico's coasts on Tuesday, with tens of thousands of tourists stranded in resort city of Acapulco on the Pacific and heavy damage reported along the Gulf coast. (AP Photo/Alejandrino Gonzalez)
Desperate thousands try to escape cut-off Acapulco photo
Tourists stand in line at a military airbase in hopes of getting a seat on a Mexican Air Force jet, in Pie de la Cuesta, near Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2013. With roads blocked by landslides, rockslides, floods and collapsed bridges, Acapulco was cut off from road transport after Tropical Storm Manuel made landfall on Sunday. The airport as well, was flooded. Emergency flights began arriving in Acapulco to evacuate at least 40,000 mainly Mexican tourists stranded in the resort city. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Desperation in Mexico resort as storm toll rises photo
People stand on the rooftop of a home in a flooded neighborhood after Tropical Storm Manuel pounded Acapulco, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. The death toll rose to 47 Tuesday from the unusual one-two punch of a tropical storm and a hurricane, hitting Mexico at nearly the same time. Authorities scrambled to get help into, and stranded tourists out of, the cutoff resort city. (AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez)

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN

The Associated Press

ACAPULCO, Mexico —

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — The death toll from days of flooding in southern and central Mexico rose to 80 on Wednesday, and new reports of landslides in a village near the resort of Acapulco threatened to drive the number of casualties even higher.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said federal authorities had reached the village, known as La Pintada, by helicopter and had airlifted out 35 residents, four of whom were seriously injured in the slide, but they had not yet seen any bodies.

"It doesn't look good, based on the photos we have in our possession," Osorio Chong said, while noting that "up to this point, we do not have any (confirmed) as dead in the landslide." Earlier, speaking to local media, Osorio Chong said "this is a very powerful landslide, very big ... You can see that it hit a lot of houses."

Mexico was hit by the one-two punch of twin storms over the weekend, and the storm that soaked Acapulco on Sunday, Manuel, re-formed into a tropical storm Wednesday, threatening to bring more flooding to the country's northern coast.

With a tropical disturbance over the Yucatan Peninsula headed toward the same Gulf coast hit by Hurricane Ingrid, the country could face another double hit, just it struggles to restore services and evacuate those stranded by last weekend's flooding.

Mexico's federal Civil Protection coordinator, Luis Felipe Puente, said 35,000 homes were damaged or destroyed and authorities raised the death toll across the country to 80.

But the death toll may rise further. Mayor Edilberto Tabares of the township of Atoyac told Milenio television that 18 bodies had been recovered and possibly many more remained buried in a remote mountain village that authorities have not yet been able to reach. Atoyac is a largely rural township about 42 miles (70 kilometers) west of Acapulco.

In Acapulco itself, gun-toting state police guarded the entrance to a partly flooded Costco store hours after people looted it on one of the city's main boulevards, carting off shopping carts full of food, clothing, and in some cases flat-screen TVs.

Hundreds of people waded through waist-high brown water in the store's parking lot on Wednesday, fishing out anything — cans of food or soda — that looters might have dropped. Others shouted for the now-shuttered store to be re-opened.

"If we can't work, we have to come and get something to eat," said 60-year-old fisherman Anastasio Barrera, as he stood with his wife outside the store. "The city government isn't doing anything for us, and neither is the state government."

With the twin roads from Acapulco to Mexico City closed down, at least 40,000 tourists saw a long holiday beach weekend degenerate into a desperate struggle to get weeping children, elderly parents and even a few damp, bedraggled dogs back home. Thousands of people, some sweating, profusely, waited in line Wednesday outside a shopping mall-convention center that was being used as a shelter and waiting area for flights out.

Two of Mexico's largest airlines were running about two flights an hour from Acapulco's still-flooded international airport, with priority for those with tickets, the elderly and families with young children.

Inside the shopping center, Omar Diaz, a 23-year-old window installer, waited with his wife, their 2-day-old baby and two other children on a foam mattress covered with a blanket. Their home was flooded and the few possessions they were able to save hung in plastic bags around their improvised bed.

His wife, Marisela Diaz, 24, gave birth to daughter Paula Jasmin shortly after Tropical Storm Manuel hit, but was asked to leave a local hospital "because there weren't enough beds," she said.

"We lost everything, our house, our bed, the fans, the refrigerator, the television," said Omar, but Marisela was just happy just to be safe with her newborn. "We're good here," she said.

Outside, those waiting in the enormous lines for an airplane ticket out weren't so lucky; they sweltered in the sun that had re-appeared after the storm.

Catalina Clave, 46, who works at the Mexico City stock exchange, sweated in the humid heat along with her husband and a group of friends who had been vacationing in Acapulco. Their excruciating wait had already stretched for two days.

"Forty-eight hours without electricity, no running water and now we can't get home," Clave said. "Now all I ask for is some shade and some information." So far, authorities said they had flown about 5,300 people people out of Acapulco.

The government has promised to reopen the roads between Acapulco and Mexico City, but they were blocked by dozens of mudslides, rocks and collapsed tunnels, and the first provisional way out won't be ready for days, officials predict.

Some cash machines along Acapulco's coastal boulevard were low on bills, but most of the city's tourist zone appeared back to normal Wednesday, with roads clear, restaurants and hotels open and brightly lit and tourists strolling along the bay in an attempt to recover some of the leisure time lost to three days of incessant rains.

Gavin McLoughlin, 27, another teacher at Mexico City's Greengates School, said he went to Acapulco on a late-night bus Thursday with about 30 other teachers at the school, many of whom are in their 20s.

"We had no idea of the weather," the Englishman said. "We knew there was a hurricane on the other side but not this side."

City officials said about 23,000 homes, mostly on Acapulco's outskirts, were without electricity and water. Stores were nearly emptied by residents who rushed to stock up on basic goods. Landslides and flooding damaged an unknown number of homes.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Manuel was centered about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west-northwest of Mazatlan, with sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was projected to rake the coast with near-hurricane-force winds on Thursday.

___

Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: —https://twitter.com/mweissenstein

Copyright The Associated Press

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