PUEBLA, Mexico, Aug. 8 (UPI) — At least 39 people are dead after Tropical Storm Earl soaked the Mexican states of Puebla and Veracruz causing deadly landslides, Mexican authorities said Sunday.
Puebla suffered most of the damage, with 28 people killed. Gov. Rafael Moreno Valle vowed the communities affected would have “all resources available. We will not rest until all the damages caused have been repaired,” Moreno tweeted.
Multiple houses in Huauchinango, Puebla, were destroyed as a hillside collapsed and buried families in debris, officials said.
Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte confirmed 11 have died in his state from mudslides, with one burying a rickety shack, leaving a couple and their infant son dead in the mountain town of Tamazolapa. Two others, whose homes were destroyed, were injured in the state capital of Xalapa, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported. Authorities said a second mudslide in Tequila, a small town in the same mountainous region, buried a house, killing three family members, including a young boy.
Overall, Tropical Storm Earl damaged about 2,000 homes and caused 15 small rivers in Veracruz to overflow their banks.
Earl has been downgraded to a tropical depression, with winds dropping to 30 mph, after slamming Belize as a Category One hurricane
The storm killed at least nine Monday as it began taking shape in the Caribbean. Six of those victims were on board a bus that caught fire in Nagua, Dominican Republic, after it was hit by falling live power lines. Another three people were reported drowned in Haiti when their tour boat capsized.
