Death toll from Otis in Mexico rises as more bodies found

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Mexico’s security authorities raised the death toll Saturday from the Category 5 Hurricane Otis that struck the country’s southern Pacific coast early Wednesday to 39.

Mexico Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said in a recorded video message with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador posted to the platform X that the cause of death for the 39 was “suffocation by submersion.” But she added that investigations continue and that the victims had not yet been identified.

The increase comes after the initial death toll of 27 had not changed since it was announced Thursday. The storm’s human toll was becoming a point of contention as local media reported the recovery of more bodies. López Obrador criticized his opponents for trying to make the storm’s death toll a political issue.

Rodríguez said the number of missing rose to 10. Hundreds of families have been awaiting word from their loved ones.

In Acapulco on Saturday, government workers and volunteers cleared streets, gas station lines wrapped around the block for what gas was to be had, and some lucky families found food essentials as a more organized relief operation took shape four days after Hurricane Otis.

The aid has been slow to arrive. The Category 5 storm’s destruction cut off the city of nearly 1 million people for the first day and it intensified so quickly on Tuesday that little to nothing had been staged in advance.

Authorities had the difficult task of searching for the dead and missing. Many had remained incredulous that the government’s initial death toll of 27 and four missing had not risen in the past two days.

One military official, who did not want to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to media, said officials in his area had found at least six bodies and his unit had found one.

It had been difficult to find bodies because they were often covered in trees and other debris, he said. He was certain there were more deaths than the 27 reported, but said that even security forces hadn’t been provided an updated figure. Hundreds of families awaited word from loved ones.

Gasoline was unavailable, not because there wasn’t any, but because there was no electricity to operate the pumps. On Friday, hundreds of people ran outside a supermarket in a seaside working class neighborhood where men had broken open a gas pump and were filling up people’s empty plastic bottles.

Most families anxiously hunted for water, with some saying they were rationing their supplies. The municipal water system was out because its pumps had no power.

Felix Marquez/Associated Press Crews clear streets Saturday in Acapulco as motorists lined up for fuel and a more organized relief operation took shape four days after Hurricane Otis made landfall as a Category 5 storm.