The terrible flooding that is happening in central and southeastern Mexico has killed dozens of people and destroyed more than 100,000 houses. It has also added a dark twist to the destruction: oil poisoning.
Floodwaters that rushed through the streets of Poza Rica, Veracruz, an oil town, left a thick, black residue on everything they touched. This makes the huge clean-up job more harder.
Destruction Soaked in Oil
For others like Lilia Ramírez, the ordeal started with a scary surge. She ran out from home barely fifteen minutes before a torrent inundated her whole first floor. When she got back, she saw that the black streaks of oil on her pink walls had converted them into stripes.
Ramírez said on Monday, looking in the debris of her ground floor, “It has never been tarred like that before.”
Poza Rica, a city that grew up around the oil sector, is now dealing with the problems that came with that. It has been very hard to clean up the mud and debris because of the thick oil that has settled on roofs, trees, and cars that were thrown aside by the strong currents that came through last Friday.
Roberto Olvera, one of the neighbors, remembered how scary it was when a siren from a nearby Pemex facility informed people of the risk. “It was a very painful time because a lot of people from the neighborhood stayed behind and some died,” he said. Ramírez said that in the past, when there were significant rains, the state oil corporation Pemex would drain places nearby that contained oil to keep them from getting contaminated. This time, though, it seems like they didn’t do that.
Pemex has so far refuted claims of an oil spill in the area in a short statement.
More deaths and mass destruction
Hurricane Pricilla and Tropical Storm Raymond were two tropical systems that caused the devastation by bringing heavy rain from October 6 to 9. During this time, some parts of Veracruz state got an amazing 24.7 inches (62.7 cm) of rain.
The national death toll keeps rising:
Total Deaths: So far, the torrential rains have killed 64 individuals in five states.
Missing Persons: There are still 65 persons that are missing.
Damage to Property: About 100,000 homes in the affected area have been damaged.
Government Response and Warning Defense
The Mexican government has put together a large emergency response, sending 10,000 soldiers from the military and civilian rescue organizations to help. Helicopters are currently flying over 200 towns that are still cut off from the ground, bringing them food and water.
During the “emergency period,” President Claudia Sheinbaum stated that resources would not be constrained.
But President Sheinbaum also admitted that it would be hard to get things done logistically, saying that it could still take days for complete ground access to all impacted areas to be set up.
She justified the government’s warning mechanisms by saying that it was hard to give enough notice for this kind of catastrophe, saying it was “different from with hurricanes.”