Hurricane Grace pummelled Mexico with torrential rain on Saturday, causing severe flooding and mudslides that killed at least eight people after becoming one of the most powerful storms in years to hit the country's Gulf coast.
Grace smashed windows, downed trees, power cables and telegraph poles, leaving debris strewn around the town of Tecolutla. Photo: AFP
Grace was blowing maximum sustained winds of 201km per hour, a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, when it slammed into the coast near the resort of Tecolutla in Veracruz state in the early morning.
The state government said eight people were killed, including six from a single family. All but one of the victims died in Xalapa, the state capital, including a young girl killed by a mudslide that hit her home, the government said.
An adult was killed by a collapsed roof in the city of Poza Rica further north in the state, Veracruz Governor Cuitlahuac Garcia told a news conference.
"The state of emergency has not ended," he added.
Local television showed severe flooding in Xalapa, with coffins from a local business floating down a waterlogged street. The nearby River Actopan burst its banks, shutting down a local highway, state authorities said.
A man walks along a flooded street in the resort of Tecolutla in Veracruz state. Photo: AFP
Grace smashed windows, downed trees, power cables and telegraph poles, leaving debris strewn around Tecolutla, though there were no human casualties, local authorities said.
Images from Veracruz posted on social media showed damage to buildings and submerged cars.
Garcia said several rivers in Veracruz would flood, and urged the local population to take cover.
Residents said the hurricane had been devastating.
"You could just hear the thunder of the falling trees, it sounded very nasty, very horrible," Laura Jacinto said, adding: " I was very scared, I was very scared last night."
Another resident, Adolfo Lopez, said: "The roof... everything is gone, it took everything with it."
Earlier in the week, Grace pounded Mexico's Caribbean coast, downing trees and resulting in power outages for nearly 700,000 people, but without causing loss of life, authorities said.
It also doused Jamaica and Haiti, still reeling from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, with torrential rain.
- Reuters / BBC