Two tropical storms flanked Mexico on the Gulf and Pacific coasts, threatening a wide area of the country with flash floods and landslides, forecasters said.
Tropical Storm Manuel formed off the western coast hours after Ingrid emerged in the Gulf of Mexico near the eastern state of Veracruz.
Ingrid was nearly stationary about 85 kilometers east of the port of Veracruz but the storm was drenching portions of eastern Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center said yesterday.
Little motion was expected through the night, but Ingrid will move very close to the coast in the next couple of days, the Miami-based center said. The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 75 kilometers per hour.
Ingrid was expected to dump 10 to 15 inches of rain on a large part of eastern Mexico and more in mountainous areas.
"These rains are likely to result in life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the center said.
State oil company Pemex said late Thursday that it had preemptively suspended "sea and air operations" in the area although rigs in the region continued to operate.
Heavy rain has lashed Veracruz this week, killing 14 people, including 13 people who died when a landslide crushed their homes in a mountainous region of the Gulf Coast state.
On the Pacific coast, Tropical Storm Manuel was moving west-northwest at nine kilometers per hour, some 240 kilometers from Zihuatanejo, a Guerrero state coastal city.
The storm, blowing maximum sustained winds of 65 kilometers per hour, was expected to be close to the southwestern coast by today or tomorrow and produce floods and mudslides.
