MEXICO: Hurricane Lane leaves a trail of destruction on Mexico's Pacific coast after fizzling out

Hurricane Lane left a trail of destruction on Mexico's Pacific coast that killed three people, washed away roads and knocked down flimsy homes before fizzling out on Sunday (September 17). Lashing rains turned creeks into raging currents, destroying a bridge between the city of Culiacan and the tourist resort of Mazatlan when Lane made landfall on Saturday (September 16) as a powerful Category 3 storm. Dozens of trucks and their drivers were stranded. Lane's winds toppled electricity towers, trees and traffic signs. "We calculate that around 6,000 people have been affected and are in shelters. And now, they are reporting damages in Chametla and in Rosario, in the southern part and we are going to talk to the protection services about getting a helicopter [to help stranded flood victims]," said the Sinaloa governor, Jesus Aguilar Padilla. Houses near the town of El Dorado, where the eye of the storm hit, were flooded before Lane lost punch and slowed to a tropical depression on Sunday. A young man died when his car fell in a river in Culiacan, police said on Sunday. The storm earlier killed two others. Streets were flooded in Culiacan, the capital of the western state of Sinaloa and thousands gathered in shelters, according to local authorities. A handful of people gathered on a broken bridge near the city and stared at a small car swept into a stream. The storm, still whipping up gusts and dumping isolated rain, was dissipating inland over western Mexico, according the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. One man died in the village of Pueblos Unidos when he was knocked over by fierce winds, police said. Lane earlier killed a 7-year-old boy by triggering a rock fall in Acapulco. The storm had been expected to move up through the Sea of Cortez and make landfall farther north, but it swung suddenly to the east and crashed into the coastline, flooding streets in Culiacan and knocking out power in parts of Mazatlan. The resort of Los Cabos, on the tip of the Baja California peninsula, escaped damage from a hurricane for the second time in two weeks. The resort escaped a direct hit from Hurricane John, which killed at least three people when it struck the peninsula that extends south from the U.S. state of California.

ITN Source | September 18, 2006

Tags:. .slowed. .mexicos. .affected. .western. .jesus