2007/11/03 11:31:16 Þ.Ù
Rescuers Friday 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 and President Felipe Calderon canceled a foreign visit to help.
Television pictures showed people struggling to get to higher ground as rising water levels reached up to their necks.
Others awaited rescue on rooftops, surrounded by floodwater.
Mexican navy crews used small boats to rescue victims.
"The event has overwhelmed everybody," Interior Minister Francisco Ramirez Acuna told journalists.
Military troops evacuated the center of Tabasco's capital Villahermosa after a levy collapsed, and hospital patients in the city of 750,000 were flown to neighboring states as floodwaters continued to rise.
The floods affected more than one million residents, or about half Tabasco's population, and officials said several hundred thousand people were trapped in their homes.
"New Orleans was small compared to this," said state governor Andres Granier, in reference to the disaster wrought by hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed about 1,000 people in the southern American city alone.
President Felipe Caldron called off a November 6-8 visit to Panama, Colombia and Peru to deal with this "extreme emergency," his office said in a statement.
Only one fatality was recorded so far in Tabasco, but the floods have caused widespread devastation.
The oil-rich state the size of Belgium is 80 percent underwater, and 850 towns have been flooded, officials said.
And with more rain forecast over the coming days, there is no respite in sight.
Stocks of basic supplies are running low amid what officials said was panic buying.
Tabasco "is devastated," Granier said of the 29,000 square kilometer (11,000 square mile) state on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
"One hundred percent of crops are lost."
About 400 doctors and health workers were deployed across the region to detect any outbreak of infections, according to Tabasco's civil protection agency.
M/D
http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=246385
Television pictures showed people struggling to get to higher ground as rising water levels reached up to their necks.
Others awaited rescue on rooftops, surrounded by floodwater.
Mexican navy crews used small boats to rescue victims.
"The event has overwhelmed everybody," Interior Minister Francisco Ramirez Acuna told journalists.
Military troops evacuated the center of Tabasco's capital Villahermosa after a levy collapsed, and hospital patients in the city of 750,000 were flown to neighboring states as floodwaters continued to rise.
The floods affected more than one million residents, or about half Tabasco's population, and officials said several hundred thousand people were trapped in their homes.
"New Orleans was small compared to this," said state governor Andres Granier, in reference to the disaster wrought by hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed about 1,000 people in the southern American city alone.
President Felipe Caldron called off a November 6-8 visit to Panama, Colombia and Peru to deal with this "extreme emergency," his office said in a statement.
Only one fatality was recorded so far in Tabasco, but the floods have caused widespread devastation.
The oil-rich state the size of Belgium is 80 percent underwater, and 850 towns have been flooded, officials said.
And with more rain forecast over the coming days, there is no respite in sight.
Stocks of basic supplies are running low amid what officials said was panic buying.
Tabasco "is devastated," Granier said of the 29,000 square kilometer (11,000 square mile) state on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
"One hundred percent of crops are lost."
About 400 doctors and health workers were deployed across the region to detect any outbreak of infections, according to Tabasco's civil protection agency.
M/D
http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=246385
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