The death toll from Hurricane Otis in south Mexico has climbed to 48, with 31 people still missing, as recovery efforts in the hard-hit state of Guerrero continued to make progress, Laura Velazquez, the national coordinator of civil protection, said Thursday.
In a telephone call during President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s daily press conference, Velazquez reported that some 65 percent of residents in the devastated towns of Acapulco and nearby Coyuca de Benitez now had access to potable water, an essential service that was cut off by the damage.
That figure could reach 100 percent by the end of the month, she added.
Regarding the power outage, she said the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission had restored electricity service 100 percent.
Otis hit Guerrero’s Pacific coast on Oct. 25 as a catastrophic category 5 hurricane, causing severe destruction mainly to homes and hotel infrastructure in Acapulco, one of the country’s most popular tourism destinations, and Coyuca de Benitez.
