. Earth Science News .
Hungry Mexico flood victims turn to looting

Residents use an inflatable boat to get out of downtown Villahermosa, state of Tabasco, Mexico 04 November, 2007. Rescuers battled to reach people stranded on rooftops as more than one million struggled in the worst floods on record in Mexico's southern Tabasco state. Around 80 percent of the Belgium-sized state was flooded after seven rain-loaded rivers burst their banks in the flat, flood-prone region, in its worst natural disaster in decades. Photo courtesy AFP.
by Staff Writers
Villahermosa, Mexico (AFP) Nov 3, 2007
Rescue workers and police were out in force helping flood victims in southern Mexico, as food shortages sent hundreds of hungry people on a looting rampage at a shopping center.

Around 80 percent of the Belgium-sized state of Tabasco was flooded after seven rain-loaded rivers burst their banks in the flat, flood-prone region, in its worst natural disaster in decades.

In neighboring Chiapas state, bordering the Pacific Ocean, authorities put 30 townships with more than a million people under a state of alert Saturday after 16 rivers overflowed their banks, and reported one person killed by the floods.

In Tabasco, the floods affected more than half the state's 2.1 million population, and one death has been confirmed so far. Patrols were still searching for victims Saturday.

Many thousands of people were trapped at home. With water as deep as two meters (6.5 feet), many have desperately tried to flee, waiting as long as three days for a rescue-boat pickup from their rooftops or as they clung to tree branches.

Thousands poured into neighboring states Chiapas and Veracruz seeking refuge.

But many others holed up despite the flooding, refusing to leave at their own risk, fearing looters would take all their possessions.

Carlos Mario Ramos, 75, had been slow to leave his home, and said he was happy that "the water is down a bit. But at this rate it is going to take a week or two to go down to normal."

Drinking water and food shortages brought on by flooded roads in Tabasco have prompted several looting incidents at abandoned homes and businesses.

The worst incident took place Saturday morning when around 1,000 people overran a downtown shopping center in Tabasco, overwhelming law enforcement officials posted in the area, and making off with everything in sight, including televisions and home appliances.

"People are going hungry, we're aware of that," Tabasco Governor Andres Granier said on television after the looting incident, "but being hungry doesn't justify such behaviour and outright attacks."

Smaller looting incidents occurred Friday and police made several arrests, the governor also said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Friday said there were 7,500 military and police staff working on rescue and security operations in Tabasco.

The floods completely wiped out crops in the region, and a farm association estimated losses at 480 million dollars.

Health officials have meanwhile started to fret about looming health risks from open sewage and the spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes. Dengue, cholera and diarrhea outbreaks now are very real possibilities, they said.

During the crisis, some 69,000 people have managed to get into some 600 government shelters, federal social development Minister Beatriz Zavala said.

"We've lost everything. We had to run out of our house because the water rushed in all of a sudden when the river broke its (man-made) barriers," Raul Fernandez said of his home in Villahermosa, under water since the floods started on Monday.

Overflowing rivers finally began to recede a bit for the first time Saturday. But forecasters said that with a cold front due to move into the area there could be even more rain in store.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos admitted that shelters were jammed. He said authorities were planning to open new emergency facilities at sports arenas and possibly at a bull ring.

In the state capital Villahermosa, which has 750,000 people, several neighborhoods were under as much as two meters of water after the Grijalvo river overran its banks on Thursday.

To escape, people were traveling along the city's streets in boats as if they were canals.

The Mexican armed forces began to airlift food and medical supplies to flooded areas using C-130 cargo planes, helicopters and convoys of trucks traveling on only one route open to traffic in the area.

In Chiapas, "some 50 tonnes of food and medical relief supplies have been flown to 28 stranded communities," state civil protection deputy chief Luis Manuel Garcia told reporters.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
A world of storm and tempest
When the Earth Quakes



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Triage Study Challenges Notions of Emergency Medical Response To Disaster
New York NY (SPX) Nov 02, 2007
In the face of terrorism and catastrophic natural disasters, modern regional trauma systems that improve survival for critically injured patients are more vital than ever. Yet many fundamental assumptions underlying these systems-such as the notion that it is imperative to send the sickest patients to the hospital first-have rarely been subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny. Now, for the first time, researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center have created a computer simulation model of trauma system response to mass casualty incidents involving dozens or hundreds of injured victims.







  • Hungry Mexico flood victims turn to looting
  • Northrop Grumman Wins Two Contracts For AN/APN-241 Radar Program
  • Triage Study Challenges Notions of Emergency Medical Response To Disaster
  • New Computer Architecture Aids Emergency Response

  • Drought in southeast US fuels battle over water resources
  • Climate controversy heats up Australian election
  • Like It Or Not, Uncertainty And Climate Change Go Hand-In-Hand
  • White House defends 'health benefits' of climate change

  • NASA Data May Help Improve Estimates Of A Hurricane's Punch
  • DMCii Satellite Imaging Helps Dramatically Reduce Deforestation Of Amazon Basin
  • NASA Views Southern California Fires And Winds
  • A Roadmap For Calibration And Validation

  • PetroChina to debut Monday in Shanghai
  • Industry welcomes fuel price hikes in China, but tensions remain
  • CSIRO And Queensland Government To Workshop Smart Exploration Techniques
  • Green500 List To Put Supercomputing On A Diet

  • Deadly HIV-TB co-epidemic sweeps sub-Saharan Africa: report
  • Northwestern Exposing Most Deadly Infectious Diseases In 3D
  • Staph-Killing Properties Of Clay Investigated
  • AIDS stunting southern Africa's prospects: Malawi president

  • Divers Find New Species In Aleutians
  • Flying Lemurs Are The Closest Relatives Of Primates
  • Could Hairy Roots Become Biofactories
  • Dead Clams Tell Many Tales

  • Cairo tries to escape life under a black cloud
  • Massive pollution in Yangtze river can be reversed: scientists
  • US Faces Burning Emissions Issue
  • Birth defects soar in polluted China

  • Research Project May Revolutionize Apparel Industry
  • World Toilet Summit opens in India
  • Europeans face mob anger over child 'abductions' in Chad
  • India's toilet champion sees human liberation in loos for all

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2007 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement