In Puerto Rico, mayor begs for aid

US President Donald Trump pledged on Friday to spare no effort to help Puerto Ricans recover from Maria’s ruinous aftermath even as San Juan’s mayor, her voice breaking with rage, accused his administration of “killing us with the inefficiency”.

Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz implored Trump from afar to “make sure somebody is in charge that is up to the task of saving lives,” while the president asserted that US officials and emergency personnel are working all-out against daunting odds, with “incredible” results.

Trump’s acting homeland security secretary, Elaine Duke, visited the island on Friday, surveying the ravaged landscape by helicopter in an hour-long tour.

She tried to move on from the remarks she made a day earlier in which she called the federal relief effort a “good-news story.” But on that front, she ran into winds as fierce as Maria.

“We are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency,” Cruz said in a news conference. “I am begging, begging anyone that can hear us, to save us from dying... This is a people-are-dying story.”

Trump said he was not aware of Duke’s “good-news” remark.

By now, telecommunications are back for about 30% of the island, nearly half of the supermarkets have reopened — at least for reduced hours — and about 60% of the gas stations are pumping. AP

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