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Floods Devastate 500,000 Mexicans

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By ANTONIO VILLEGAS, The Associated Press

Published: November 5, 2007

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - Authorities said floods in southern Mexico have destroyed or damaged the homes of as many as half a million people, as rescue workers focused Sunday on reaching isolated communities surrounded by water for almost a week.

Getting the sick and injured out - and vital supplies like food and water in - replaced mass evacuations as the priority for emergency workers in Tabasco and Chiapas states, where the widespread floods have caused eight deaths.

Many who decided to stay on rooftops to protect their homes from looters were running low on supplies, as were residents of cut-off communities, as the flooding entered its second week.

"We spent days without food. We thought we were going to die," said Marta Vidal, 47, who was transported to safety by helicopter.

In the Tabasco state capital of Villahermosa, some desperate residents broke into shuttered stores and took food and household goods.

"We are focusing on selective evacuations and bringing in supplies," said Daniel Montiel Ortiz, who oversaw helicopter rescue efforts for the federal police. Ortiz called the outbreaks of looting "isolated incidents."

After water covered about 80 percent of Tabasco's already swampy Gulf coast territory, authorities struggled to calculate the damage. The federal Social Development Department estimates the homes of 400,000 to 500,000 people were damaged or destroyed.
Civil defense officials in Chiapas state, which borders Guatemala, reported finding seven bodies: five adults swept away by swollen rivers, a 25-year-old undocumented Honduran migrant who drowned trying to cross a river and an 8-year-old girl who fell from a bridge.

In Tabasco - where one man died earlier in the week - river levels began to recede slightly.

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