Hurricane Stan knocked down trees, ripped roofs off homes and washed out bridges in southeastern Mexico, but it was the storms it helped spawn that were far more destructive, killing more than 65 people in Central America.
The former category one hurricane was losing strength over the Mexican state of Oaxaca. But forecasters said Stan triggered separate storms further to the south and officials in El Salvador's capital said 49 people had been killed, mostly due to two days of mudslides caused by rain around the country.
More than 16,700 Salvadorans had fled their homes for 167 shelters nationwide.
PHOTO: EPA
"This is a national tragedy because of the rains," said Eduardo Rivera, a spokesman for a team of Salvadoran rescue officials. "There isn't a corner of the country where there isn't pain and destruction to be found."
Among those evacuated were residents of Santa Tecla, outside the capital, San Salvador, where a strong earthquake caused a massive landslide in January four years ago. Officials have worried the mountain running alongside the neighborhood might collapse again with heavy rains or another quake.
A 4.8-magnitude earthquake did shake the Pacific Ocean off the Salvadoran coast on Tuesday, but there were no reports of injuries or major damage.
Neighboring Honduras said it would send aid to this country and Mexico also offered financial assistance.
Heavy rains also brought flooding that damaged bridges and submerged highways elsewhere in Central America.
Nine people died in Nicaragua, including six migrants believed to be Ecuadoreans killed in a boat wreck. Four deaths were reported in Honduras, three in Guatemala and one in Costa Rica.
In Mexico's Chiapas, wind and rain directly associated with Stan caused a river to break its banks and roar through the city of Tapachula, carrying homes of wood and metal with it and sparking hundreds of evacuations. Army and navy personnel joined state and local officials in helping residents flee to higher ground.
The city's center was littered with fallen branches and debris kicked up by flood waters and was virtually deserted on Tuesday night, as those not forced to evacuate holed up inside their homes.
Near Mexico's border with Guatemala, Tapachula was largely cut off from surrounding areas as major highways, roads and bridges were left under water. Chiapas Governor Pablo Salazar said four people were missing.
"Sadly, we know it's going to keep raining," Salazar said.
Hurricane Stan, which whipped up 130kph winds before being downgraded to a tropical depression, came ashore Tuesday morning along a sparsely populated stretch of coastline south of Veracruz, a busy port 295km east of Mexico City.
Its outer bands swiped the city, flooding low-lying neighborhoods and highways. Officials in Veracruz state, which includes the city of the same name, said seven people, including two children, were injured, most by falling trees or roofs that collapsed in the coastal towns of Alvarado and Montepio.
Schools around the state canceled classes and 38,000 people abandoned their homes, heading for shelters. Heavy rains also forced Veracruz's Mexican League soccer squad, the "Tiburones Rojos," or "Red Sharks," to scrap a scheduled practice.
All three of Mexico's Gulf coast crude-oil loading ports closed, but the shutdowns weren't expected to affect oil prices.
The crude-oil loading ports -- Coatzacoalcos, Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas -- handle most of the 1.8 million barrels a day of crude oil exported by state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.
Five exploratory oil platforms also were evacuated on Monday, but so far the storm hadn't affected the company's production of 3.4 million barrels a day of crude oil, Mexico's Communications and Transportation Department said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to