MEXICO – Residents in south-western Mexico on Saturday evacuated from homes flooded by the remnants of Hurricane John that ravaged the Pacific coastline for a week, bringing deadly floods and landslides that left 22 people reported dead.

In Guerrero, the worst-hit state and one of Mexico’s poorest, 18 people were killed, according to local media, many due to mudslides that crushed houses. To the south, local media reported three deaths in Oaxaca, and a young boy died in a river to the north in Michoacán state. John rapidly strengthened into a major hurricane on Monday before tearing into Guerrero. It dissipated, then reformed offshore and for the rest of the week skimmed the coastline north, bringing torrential rain and floods. John began dissipating on Friday and is no longer considered an active storm.

Evelyn Salgado, the Guerrero state governor, shared images on X of emergency responders in the major resort city of Acapulco carrying out rescue operations by boat, jet ski and helicopter, and residents wading through roads flooded up to waist height.

Salgado said access to the airport had been re-established on Saturday morning. Residents with small children who evacuated from flooded neighborhoods on dinghies and surfboards asked authorities for support as the city, still recovering from a devastating 2023 storm, faced a second disaster in less than a year. Last October, Hurricane Otis struck Acapulco as a category 5 storm that rapidly intensified off the coast, leaving more than 50 people dead and causing billions of dollars in damages. But John’s rainfall nearly tripled the rain generated from Otis. (The Guardian)

CANARY ISLANDS –  Nine people are confirmed drowned and at least 48 are missing after a boat carrying migrants capsized off Spain’s Canary Islands overnight, rescue services said on Saturday, the latest in a series of such disasters off the west coast of Africa.

Sea rescue teams said in a statement they had answered a distress call off El Hierro, one of the islands in the Atlantic archipelago, shortly after midnight. They managed to save 27 of the 84 people on board. Anselmo Pestana, head of the Canary Islands prefecture, said survivors had told their rescuers that the boat had set off from Nuadibu in Mauritania, nearly 500 miles (about 800km) away.

They also suggested that there might have been as many as 90 people on board. Four of those rescued were minors, he added. Pestana was speaking from the port of La Estaca on El Hierro island. The most critical part of the operation was when the rescue vessels approached the boat in distress, he told journalists, because it was vital that those on board the stricken craft stay calm.

They had to follow the instructions of the rescue crews to ensure their vessel stayed balanced and did not capsize, he added.  He said the migrants had gone two days without food or water, which may have contributed to the panic and the boat capsizing, he said. Five ships, three helicopters and one plane had taken part in the search and rescue operation, he added. This disaster follows the death of 39 migrants in early September when their boat sank off Senegal while attempting a similar crossing to the Canaries, from where migrants hope to reach mainland Europe.

Thousands of migrants have died in recent years setting off into the Atlantic to reach Europe onboard overcrowded and often dilapidated boats. The latest tragedy “again underlines the dangerousness of the Atlantic route”, Canaries regional president Fernando Clavijo wrote on X. “We need Spain and the EU to act decisively in the face of a structural humanitarian tragedy” as lives are lost “metres from Europe’s southern border”, he added. (The Guardian)