At least five people have died after Hurricane Simon and Tropical Storm Rachel swept Mexico’s Pacific coast, bringing flooding that felled trees and electricity poles, blocked roads and left homes underwater.
Simon was responsible for the death of a 71-year-old man who was killed when a wall gave way in Chilpancingo, in the southern state of Guerrero, governor Evelyn Salgado told a press conference.
Salgado said the storm had also caused damage to infrastructure and housing in coastal communities in the state, among them the major seaport of Acapulco.
Tropical Storm Rachel is being blamed for the deaths of four members of a single family, two of them children, whose bodies were recovered on the edge of Ensenada in Baja California, according to the state’s prosecutor’s office.
Prosecutors said five other people were still unaccounted for, and that security forces had used helicopters to rescue 32 people. Baja governor Marina del Pilar said officials were assisting more than 50 people in temporary shelters.
Simon did not come ashore and, after easing to category two on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, was tracking away from the coast, authorities said, with a rain alert still in force.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said heavy rainfall tied to Simon in west-central Mexico over the coming days could yet cause life-threatening flooding and mudslides.
Officials cautioned that waves reaching up to five metres were still forecast in some coastal areas. Flooding and landslides had already struck communities near rivers and streams in the states of Michoacan and Colima.
The El Niño phenomenon, marked by warming water temperatures in the Pacific, is driving more intense hurricanes this season in the region.
Meteorologists say the 2026-27 El Niño, which brings global shifts in winds and rainfall along with erratic weather, is certain to be the biggest ever recorded. Scientists also now believe human-caused global heating is making El Niños more intense.
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