Thousands of Trapped Tourists Get Some Relief from Acapulco Airlift Jose Antonia Rivera - Associated Press
go to original September 18, 2013

Thousands of exhausted tourists were airlifted out of the Mexico's western resort of Acapulco on Tuesday after Tropical Storm Manuel battered the city, causing floods and landslides. (France24/worldnewsdepartment)

Emergency flights began arriving Tuesday to help evacuate parts of Acapulco, where tens of thousands of tourists were stranded by flooding and landslides that shut down the highway to Mexico City and swamped the international airport.

The death toll rose to 47 from the combined punch of Tropical Storm Manuel, which hit Acapulco and hundreds of kilometres of Mexico's Pacific Coast, and Hurricane Ingrid, which battered the Gulf Coast over the weekend.

As many as 40,000 tourists, many of whom travelled from Mexico City for a long holiday weekend, found themselves stranded in Acapulco, with the airport flooded and highways blocked by landslides and flooding caused by Manuel.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told Radio Formula that 27 people had died because of the storm in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located. Osorio Chong said 20 more people died nationwide, many as a result of former hurricane Ingrid, which struck the Gulf coast on Monday.

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