Sawt Falasteen - Survivors in flood-hit Mexico need food, fear more landslides

Gonzalez, 44, lives in San Bartolo Tutotepec, a municipality in Hidalgo, one of three states in central and eastern Mexico worst-hit by several days of rains that turned streets into rivers and swept away roads and bridges.

She spoke to AFP in front of her wooden, tin-roofed house, nestled in mountains. It took an AFP team five hours to reach the area after traveling 19 kilometers (12 miles) on foot.

"We felt like the ground was already sinking," said Gonzalez, recounting when the landslide stuck and she fled outside in the darkness with her 14-year-old daughter.

"You could hear the stones falling down there, the houses shaking.”

After four days of isolation, Gonzalez said she was surviving on tortillas. She is unable to withdraw cash as ATMs have been damaged.

"As long as there is corn... we'll manage," she said, but she worried that the rain would return and destroy her house, now riddled with cracks.

Across the impacted regions in Mexico, authorities have reported 64 deaths and 65 missing. Among the missing is the doctor of San Bartolo Tutotepec, its mayor Ubaldo Gonzalez told AFP. The impoverished town lies in the Otomi indigenous region.

- 'Total devastation' -

President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday around 10,000 troops have been deployed with boats, planes and helicopters as part of rescue efforts and to deliver critical food and water for those trapped by the rains that also badly hit the neighboring states of Puebla and Veracruz.

Dozens of small communities remained inaccessible by road on Monday.

The path to San Bartolo Tutotepec is treacherous. With the roads closed, the only access is along a muddy path over hills.

Women and men hike it, carrying backpacks, bags and boxes of food to take to their cut-off villages.

About 50 soldiers marched with shovels along the highway that connects San Bartolo Tutotepec with the town of Tenango de Doria, which lies to the south. Thick fog made it difficult to see.

An officer said that after an entire night removing mud and rocks, the troops had barely cleared 100 meters (yards) of the road. Army bulldozers began arriving on Sunday, but their weight has created cracks in the winding road, impeding progress.

Military personnel have only managed to reach the worst-hit communities by helicopter.

The mayor, Gonzalez, said the landslides had caused “total devastation" in the municipality’s communities. He said residents are desperate for food but are doing their best to support their neighbors.

On the road to San Bartolo, residents are also busy clearing the road of debris and mud in areas unreached by the military. They leave rocks to indicate where the road is blocked.

Lucio Islas, a 73-year-old retired mechanic, was using his truck to provide free transport for residents exhausted after hours of walking.

He said he does it out of "humanity." In the Otomi mountains, "we help each other," he said.

H.Jarrar--SF-PST