The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, visited Acapulco and promised to rebuild the city “in a very short time”
When fulfilled one month after Hurricane Otisthe most powerful in the history of Mexicodevastation prevails in Acapulco, where its inhabitants criticize the Government’s late response to support the more than 250,000 victims.
The streets of Acapulco, one of the most touristic cities in Mexico, continues to be full of garbage, most of the beachfront buildings only maintain their skeletonthe houses on the hills remain full of mud and many families still have not found their relatives who disappeared that night in the middle of the rain and wind or under the rubble.
Authorities, both local, state and federal, ensure that They are putting all their efforts so that Acapulco recovers and the Acapulqueños work day and night with the same goal, but they assure that they need more help.
“The truth is that we have destroyed Acapulco and it was not just one part, It was all of Acapulco, all those who have more, those who have little, those who have medium, It hit all of us, so it is complicated. “We need more help,” Jesús Zamora, owner of several restaurants in the city and president of infrastructure of the Tourism Advisory Council, said in an interview with EFE.
Interviewed in one of his restaurants that suffered much less damage than others on the Acapulco Coast, he says that he feels “more or less relaxed” when he is in this place, but When he goes out into the street he is once again aware of the difficulties his city is going through. and how long it takes for normality to return.
“When you go out into the street the sadness returns and you see again that everything is there and you don’t see him when,” he said.
Landslides, mud and garbage
Likewise, residents of the high areas of Acapulco, many of whom lost their homes due to landslides, They see the time when normality returns very far awaysince the machinery moves very slowly, there are not enough of them, and they have to move to various parts of the city before they have finished their work.
In addition to facing not having a habitable home, some have lost several family members. The official figure is 50 dead and 30 missing.
On Thursday, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obradorvisited Acapulco and promised to rebuild “in a very short time” the city by defending its Government’s response after four weeks of Hurricane Otis, while residents protested to denounce the lack of support and the persistence of missing people.
“We are talking about (rebuilding) 250,000 houses and we want to do it in a very short time, that we can have new houses, rehabilitated, painted, in the colors we like,” declared the president in his morning conference.
The Mexican ruler has received questions about the official death toll (50) and the late attention of the victims in Acapulco and Coyuca de Benítez, the two most damaged municipalities, but he has accused his “adversaries” of spreading the word that the cyclone left more than 300 dead.
The Fitch agency calculated Catastrophic losses from the hurricane amount to $16 billionwhile the business chambers provided two years and up to 300,000 million pesos for the reconstruction of Acapulco.
Even so, the president justified his Government’s budget, which on November 1 he estimated at 61,313 million pesos for reparations and social support.
Censuses and belongings
Until now, the Government has delivered 11,836 packages of household goods out of a total of 250,000more than 1 million pantries and claim to have begun the delivery of support of between 35,000 pesos and 60,000 pesos to people with an affected home or commercial premises.
The businessman Jesús Zamora assured that the establishments of tourist service providers have already been censused but that until now They have not received any financial aid.
A neighbor of the Colosio neighborhood, Teresa Colin, told EFE that in your area there was delivery of belongings: mattress, stove, set of pans, blender, refrigerator and fan after the Welfare Secretariat carried out a census.
Even so, the most serious problem for her is that Water is still very scarce in that and other areas where the streets are still full of garbage and many houses that collapsed have not been cleaned, which “has already caused people to get sick.”
Finally, Zamora assured that, contrary to what López Obrador recently said, Acapulco will not be recovered by Decemberthe best season for tourism in Acapulco and the main source of income for a large part of its population.
“I would like to have my business full and for all my colleagues to have them. Not only because of me, the nautical people have already gone a month without earning a single peso and on top of that they lost all their assets. “It is definitely not possible, neither the restaurants nor the hotels will be restored in December,” she stated.
The hoteliers anticipated a 20% recovery in hosting Available in December and up to 50% for Easter.
“We want them (tourists) to come, but May the federal government help us so that all businesses are restored and Acapulco shines again,” the businessman concluded.