Mexican soldiers dug through tons of mud and dirt Friday in their continuing search for landslide victims, as authorities looked for a federal police helicopter that went missing while carrying out relief operations on the flood-stricken Pacific coast.
The helicopter with three crew members on board was returning from the remote mountain village of La Pintada, where the mudslide occurred, when it went missing Thursday, federal security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said.
“We still don’t know anything,” Sanchez said. “(The helicopter) was in La Pintada … and then we didn’t hear anything more from it.”
Search efforts continued in the town north of Acapulco, where 68 people were reported missing following Monday’s slide. Two bodies have been recovered, but it was unclear if they were among those on the list of missing.
Federal police have been helping move emergency supplies and aid victims of massive flooding caused by Tropical Storm Manuel, which washed out bridges and collapsed highways throughout the area, cutting Acapulco off by land and stranding thousands of tourists.
The country’s Transportation Department said Friday that a patchwork connection of roads leading to Mexico City had been partially reopened around midday. Part of the main toll highway, however, remain blocked by collapsed tunnels and mudslides, so drivers were being shunted to a smaller non-toll highway that is in better shape on some stretches.
Yet so badly damaged was that route that traffic was allowed through only in small groups escorted by federal police, and in only one direction: outward bound from Acapulco.
Thousands of cars, trucks and buses lined up at the edge of Acapulco, waiting to get out of the flood- and shortage-stricken city.
“We’re a little calmer now. We’ve spent six days stranded, waiting to get out,” said Armando Herrera, a tourist from Mexico state, outside of Mexico City, as he waited in his car to be allowed on to the newly reopened road.
Survivors of the La Pintada landslide staying at a shelter in Acapulco recounted how a tidal wave of dirt, rocks and trees exploded off the hill, sweeping through the center of town, burying families in their homes and sweeping wooden houses into the bed of the swollen river that winds past the village on its way to the Pacific.
“Everyone who could ran into the coffee fields. It smothered the homes and sent them into the river. Half the homes in town were smothered and buried,” said Marta Alvarez, a 22-year-old homemaker who was cooking with her 2-year-old son, two brothers and parents when the landslide erupted.
La Pintada was the scene of the single greatest tragedy in the twin paths of destruction caused by Manuel and Hurricane Ingrid, which simultaneously pounded both of Mexico’s coasts over the weekend, spawning huge floods and landslides across hundreds of miles of coastal and inland areas.
Manuel later gained hurricane force and rolled into the northern state of Sinaloa on Thursday morning before weakening over land.
The death toll from the weekend storms, not including the dead in Sinaloa, stood at 97. But it was certain to rise because the figure also doesn’t include the missing in La Pintada.
President Enrique Pena Nieto said he was cancelling a trip to New York for the annual U.N. General Assembly because of the emergency. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, visiting Mexico City for a Friday meeting with Pena Nieto, offered U.S. help in flood recovery and relief efforts.
