Hurricane Otis death toll rises to 39 in Mexico

The death toll in Mexico has climbed to 39 after Category 5 Hurricane Otis hit the country’s Guerrero state earlier this week, authorities said in a statement Saturday, CNN reported. 

Authorities said 29 men and 10 women were killed when the record-breaking storm brought powerful sustained winds of 165 mph ashore near Acapulco shortly after midnight on Wednesday, leaving the popular southern Mexico tourist destination in ruins.

The hurricane impacted 220,035 homes and 80% of the area’s hotels were damaged, according to the Mexican government’s preliminary damage assessment.

The health sector reported ground-floor flooding at one hospital, and another hospital where electromechanical equipment and the medicinal gas supply were affected, the statement said.

Falling trees and landslides triggered by Otis resulted in multiple roads being closed.

The statement added the Mexican Seismic Alert System (SASMEX) has damage to 27 sensors in the Pacific Ocean region. The Acapulco International Airport also suffered damage, but operations have since resumed.

An underestimation of the threat in early forecasts left residents and officials in southern Mexico with minimal time to prepare for Otis’s severity. Within a mere 12 hours, Otis rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to the area’s strongest storm on record, CNN previously reported.