Deadly Flash Flood Hits Mexico
A flash flood inundated this northern Mexican city early Monday, killing at least 29 people caught in the path of an overflowing river, forcing hundreds into shelters, and damaging homes and cars. Dozens were missing and the death toll was expected to rise.
Floodwaters had receded and rain eventually stopped, allowing President Vicente Fox to visit Piedras Negras, a border city of approximately 200,000 people located in Coahuila state about 150 miles southwest of San Antonio, Texas. There was a constant threat of more downpours, however, as heavy, dark clouds loomed overhead.
Struggling to be heard over cheers and often-interrupted by cries of "yes, we can," the president addressed several hundred people at the municipal gym, which authorities had turned into a makeshift shelter.
"We will help each and every one of you recover your homes, furniture, belongings, and everything else you've lost," Fox said.
Emergency crews had recovered 29 bodies by Monday evening, but were still looking for as many as 75 people who had been reported missing, according to the state attorney general's office.
Two of those killed were children, and more than half were elderly, Piedras Negras Red Cross president Alfonso Bres said.
The floods left behind houses without roofs, toppled walls and fences, and fallen power poles. Battered and overturned cars were scattered throughout the streets, yards and patios of riverside neighborhoods, and the city remained without power, water and electricity.
"We lost everything, but thank God we're alive," said Oscar Tapia, 67, who carried a bucket of clothing salvaged from his house on the banks of the Escondido River, which overflowed as the result of the intense rains.
Tapia and his three sisters were able to wade to safety after their house filled waist-deep with water.
Jose Luis Zuniga, 31, retrieved three briefcases stuffed with birth certificates, passports and other hard-to-replace documents from his house, located two blocks south of the Escondido. Everything else, including clothes soaked with mud, was destroyed.
"We all left quick because the water was coming," said Zuniga, who escaped with his wife and three children. "I was able to get out in the car with my family but many people were left behind."
Before Fox arrived at the shelter, hundreds of people, including dozens of large families, lined up to receive blankets, bottled water and rations of spaghetti, black beans and bread served on disposal plates.
"That river brought death with it," said Tomasa Magallanes, who sat outside the gym with her family on two mattresses authorities gave to them. "You could hear many screams. The current carried cars and furniture as if they were toys."
The Magallaneses were rescued after four hours spent on the rooftop of their house. Their truck was swept away by the current.
Magallanes' husband, Lazaro Carrillo, 49, helped recover the bodies of two elderly women neighbors who were killed by the floodwaters.
Radio announcers read the names of those at shelters in an attempt to help families locate their missing relatives.
Heavy rains began on Sunday, forcing water levels to rise by 8 meters (25 feet) in the Escondido, which flows into the Rio Grande. The downpours intensified around midnight, causing the river to overflow and in a matter of 15 minutes dozens of houses in Villa de Fuente, a working-class neighborhood of tin-roof shacks, city officials said.
The Coahuila attorney general's office said 120 houses were damaged. Authorities had earlier estimated that floodwaters had severely damaged or destroyed at least 500 homes and 300 cars. Officials were worried about structural damage to the bridge over the Escondido, and restricted cars to crossing one at a time, while asking pedestrians to walk down the center.
Mexico's Interior Department declared a state of emergency in the area, an action that releases federal funds to help the city clean up and rebuild.
Coahuila Gov. Enrique Martinez y Martinez called the flooding some of the worst in the history of the U.S.-Mexico border, saying "the magnitude of destruction is enormous."
Local factories offered shelter to their workers, radio stations reported. The population of Piedras Negras has swelled in recent years as residents from the interior have arrived looking for work in the factories.
Emergency workers patrolled the city, moving residents from low-lying neighborhoods to shelters. Some evacuees were treated for hypothermia. Some of the donated materials for affected families came from residents in Eagle Pass, Texas, directly over the border from Piedras Negras.
The U.S. Border Patrol sent two helicopters to help rescue officials locate survivors stranded on rooftops and clinging to tree branches. Mexican government-owned helicopters arrived later from the Coahuila state capital of Saltillo.
Piedras Negras Mayor Claudio Bres and Coahuila governor Enrique Martinez were to tour the area later Monday to review the damages.
Police were at the entrance of the city, trying to control the traffic that had backed up for miles.