MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Tropical Storm John unleashed heavy rains along Mexico’s southern Pacific coast as it moved inland on Tuesday morning, threatening dangerous flooding and causing at least two deaths in a mudslide.
Stretching across several Mexican states, the storm uprooted trees and electrical posts and damaged roofs, officials told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday.
The affected area is home to both cargo ports and some of the country’s top beach resorts. Around two-thirds of local power users were without electricity and phone service was also hit, officials said.
Video posted on social media showed sheets of rain pummeling empty streets overnight near the large Lazaro Cardenas port in Michoacan state as strong winds battered trees.
Further south in Oaxaca state, the Puerto Escondido and Huatulco airports popular with tourists were closed.
The two fatalities were reported in the small town of Tlacoachistlahuaca, in Guerrero state, located inland in between Puerto Escondido and Acapulco, a major beach resort that was devastated by Hurricane Otis last year.
Laura Velazquez, the national head of emergency services, said John could cause further “intense rainfall” over Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states. She said accumulated rainfall so far had totaled nearly 11 inches (28 cm).
John was downgraded from hurricane strength to a still powerful tropical storm as it made landfall overnight, and is currently located about 70 miles (113 km) northwest of Acapulco as it moves inland at a speed of 12 miles per hour (18 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
John is packing maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (64 kph), the Miami-based forecaster said in its latest advisory.
The center flagged the possibility of life-threatening flash flooding across parts of southwestern Mexico over the next few days.
On Monday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged residents to seek higher ground as the storm system approached.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes Fernandez and David Alire Garcia; Additional reporting by Natalia Siniawski in Madrid and Anushree Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Christina Fincher and Rosalba O’Brien)
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