Bodies floated amid debris in the streets of Acapulco on Thursday after Hurricane Pauline hit southern Mexico killing at least 122 people. A state of shock settled over the water-logged city after Pauline tore through it overnight with winds of up to 240 kph.
State chief attorney Antonio Hernandez told reporters that 102 bodies had been found in the city. The Mexican Red Cross appealed nationwide for donations of clothes, medicines, blankets and food to help the victims. Troops, police and civil defence workers joined rescue efforts in the disaster hit areas.
The US Hurricane Center said Pauline was 96 km north of the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas, with sustained winds of 135 kph that kept it in the hurricane bracket, though it was fast losing steam.
It was expected to hit near the port of Manzanillo, a town of some 125,000 inhabitants 520 km southwest of Mexico City. Manzanillo civil defense officials said 10,000 people in the city were on evacuation alert.
Guerrero state, which includes Acapulco, governor Angel Aguirre said residents were appalled: We cant remember ... ever having seen in our history something which has caused as much damage to Guerrero as this.
Government officials said Pauline was the worst storm to strike Mexico since Hurricane Gilbert smashed into the Caribbean coast in 1988, killing 450 people.
Before reaching Acapulco, Pauline steamrollered up the coast of southern Mexico, flattening fragile fishing villages, ripping up roads and bridges and tossing splintered trees about the countryside.
Guerrero state authorities said five people were drowned near the Oaxacan border. In Oaxaca, the government said 14 people were killed and 15 others were unaccounted for.
Another person was killed in Chiapas state, the Red Cross said.
Experts said the severity of the storm might have been made worse by El Nino, a weather phenomenon that warms southern Pacific waters and leads to more frequent and severe storms.
Mexico each year suffers hurricanes on its Caribbean coast, but strong Pacific storms seldom hit the coast hard.
City authorities declared Acapulco a disaster area and President Ernesto Zedillo, on a state visit to Germany, ordered three cabinet members to the area to coordinate relief efforts and sent his condolences to families of the victims.
MEXICO CITY: Mexicos most destructive hurricane in nine years had practically dissipated early on Friday, after leaving a trail of destruction and more than a hundred dead in Acapulco, weather forecasters said.
Mexican meteorologist Martin Tellez said that Pauline, which hit the Pacific coast as a category four hurricane on Wednesday, had been downgraded to a tropical depression. After it wreaked havoc on land, Pauline was unlikely to pick up force or return to sea, he added. It will no longer go back to sea because of the position it is at. We expect it to continue to weaken, and it could have already dissipated, he said. Pauline was located near the Michoacan and Jalisco state border, about 94 miles (150 km) inland. Ports in the region were on alert, media reports said.
Rainfall is the only problem right now and is a danger to many places in Mexico because in the mountainous regions it can produce flash flooding, Miami hurricane center specialist Miles Lawrence said.
The Mexican weather service estimated that at 1300 local time (1800 GMT) the storms remnants would be near latitude 20.0 north and 103.5 west, with maximum winds of 28 miles per hour (45 kph) and gusts of 41 mph (65 kph). That was way below the 150-mph (240-kph) gusts Pauline registered at her peak.
