Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday expressed concern about supplies of drinking water in the country’s west after Hurricane John hit the Pacific coast, killing at least 16 people.
“The most urgent needs are drinking water supplies and clearing the roads,” Sheinbaum said on her first trip out of Mexico City, to Acapulco, which was hard hit in the storm.
Sheinbaum, on just day two in office, visited the area with members of her cabinet “to support emergency personnel and getting essential goods to the people,” she said on social network X.
From her car, she listened to one resident explain how she had already lost her business in deadly Hurricane Otis, which hit Acapulco last year.
Sheinbaum also warned residents to be mindful of a new tropical depression expected to soon make landfall and dump heavy rains on Guerrero and Oaxaca states in southern Mexico.
“We ask residents to move away from rivers, seek higher ground, move closer to evacuation centers and follow instructions given by authorities,” she said.
John made landfall last week as a Category 3 hurricane before churning along the coast for several days and striking land again as a tropical storm.
It left parts of Acapulco, the beachside city that was once a playground for the rich and famous, completely submerged.
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