Sawt Falasteen - Mexico announces recovery plan for hurricane-hit Acapulco

"Together we will very soon be able to put the beautiful and nostalgic port of Acapulco back on its feet," President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said at his daily news conference.

Otis smashed into Acapulco a week ago as a scale-topping Category 5 hurricane packing winds of 165 miles (270 kilometers) per hour.

The storm left a trail of destruction and at least 46 people dead, with 58 others unaccounted for.

The 61.3-billion-peso recovery plan includes the delivery of groceries to nearly 250,000 affected families for three months, as well as cleaning, painting and rehabilitation of damaged homes, Lopez Obrador said.

The government will provide interest-free loans for small businesses and a budget for improving urban services such as water, drainage and lighting.

There will also be support for hotels and money to rehabilitate roads connecting Acapulco with Mexico City and surrounding municipalities.

"We have a budget to finance all these needs," Lopez Obrador said.

"We do not consider allocating these resources as an expense, but rather an investment," he added.

Otis severely damaged or destroyed many buildings and led to power and communication outages, though services have been restored in several areas.

Supermarket shelves were quickly stripped bare in a wave of looting.

The government said that it would deploy National Guard troops to prevent robberies, after residents with barricades and machetes were seen guarding neighborhoods from looters.

S.Abdullah--SF-PST