After taking a beating from Tropical Storm Cristóbal, a state of emergency has been declared in four states due to the effects of wind and severe rains that hammered southeastern Mexico for days.
Across the southeast, communities reported flooding, landslides and washed out roads due to the intensity and duration of the storm.
Mexico’s National Meteorological Service reported that Cristóbal dumped a total of more than 50 centimeters of rain in some areas of Chiapas and Yucatán.
On Sunday, Mexico’s Civil Protection agency declared a state of emergency in 26 municipalities in Yucatán, nine in Chiapas, four in Quintana Roo and one in Tabasco. The declarations allow the affected states to receive federal relief funds as they struggle to meet the basic needs of thousands displaced by the storm.
The government has dispatched an additional 790 members of the army to join the thousands of soldiers and National Guard members and soldiers it sent last week to assist in the clean-up efforts in Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán. The army, which will also be providing security patrols, has set up two community kitchens complete with tortilla machines to provide food for affected residents.
Continuación, Balancán, Tabasco después de la tormenta tropical Cristobal. Necesitan ayuda pic.twitter.com/W3EIoQ9meQ
— Maritza Avalos Castr (@ClaritzAvalos) June 6, 2020
Yesterday, 275 evacuations and 11 airlifts were carried out by soldiers.
Through the course of the storm, more than 800 people in Campeche took refuge in shelters, as did more than 2,000 people in Yucatán.
One person was killed by a falling tree in Chiapas, where the communities of Chicoasén, Bochil, Copainalá, Tecpatán, Ixtapa and Unión Juárez saw landslides and wash-outs.
In southern Quintana Roo, the Mexican military used two helicopters to airlift an estimated 450 people out of danger zones. And in Cozumel, a “pirate ship” popular with tourists sank due to high waves and extreme rains.
The storm formed on June 2 from the remnants of Pacific Tropical Storm Amanda, which battered Central America leaving at least 22 dead in El Salvador and Guatemala, and was the earliest named storm in the Atlantic ever recorded. The previous record was set in 2016 when Tropical Storm Colin formed on June 5.
The storm had moved north into the United States as of Monday, when it was downgraded to a tropical depression.
Source: El Diario (sp), Milenio (sp), Quintana Roo Hoy (sp)
