Deadly Jimena claims first victim in Mexico

September 04, 2009 07:23:08 PM

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Tropical Storm Jimena claimed its first life on Thursday as it lashed Mexico's Baja California with torrential rain and ripped the roofs of houses.

A man, who was not identified, was found dead after unsuccessfully trying to ride out the storm in his house in the town of Mulege, half-way up the sparsely populated peninsula.

"He refused to go to a shelter and then Jimena came through," a Baja California Sur state official told AFP by telephone.

There was better news for the family of a fisherman reported missing on Tuesday, after he was found alive.

"Sadly I can't say the worst is over yet, as Jimena is still in the north of the state," Social Development Minister Ernesto Cordero said on Mexican television as he surveyed scenes of devastation.

Puerto San Carlos, a fishing village, was hit hard by the heavy rain and roaring winds that destroyed dozens of houses, caused power outages and floods and felled trees, poles and billboards.

"Our house collapsed on top of us, so we ran to our neighbors and another family showed up too and then that house lost its roof, so all of us -- eight kids and six adults -- squeezed into a car which is where we spent the worst part of the storm," Leonardo Hernandez told AFP.

Streets turned to mud as bowed lamp posts dangled over rain-lashed roads littered with trees uprooted by the huge gusts of wind. Five fishing boats anchored at the port sank under the heavy ocean swells.

"Seventy-five percent of homes have been affected," said Puerto San Carlos official Humberto Arias. Power was out in many parts of Baja California Sur state, including the towns of Comondu and Loreto, the authorities said.

Jimena had been a Category Four hurricane -- the most powerful of 2009 -- shortly before making landfall on Wednesday, weakening to a tropical storm on Thursday, but heavy rains were falling and winds were still gusting above 40 miles per hour (65 kilometers per hour).

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said later Thursday that the eye of Jimena had drifted over the Baja peninsula into the Gulf of California and warned of potential flooding after up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain in some areas.

Luxury tourist resorts on the southern tip of the peninsula were spared a direct hit and most foreigners fled before Jimena struck.

In a sign of a gradual return to normal in southern Baja California, shops began to reopen in the tourist hub of Los Cabos and people could be seen strolling through the streets.

Two of the three international airports in Baja California Sur, the state that encompasses the southern half of the peninsula, also reopened, officials said.

More than 15,000 families had been evacuated from high-risk zones and thousands of tourists deserted the resorts as Jimena barreled in from the Pacific.

Los Cabos felt the pinch after a major international tax conference organized by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had to be moved to Mexico City because of the storm.

The Mariner of the Seas cruise ship -- the second-largest in the world with some 5,000 passengers aboard -- also canceled a scheduled stop in the resort.

Meanwhile, Erika, which formed in the Atlantic Tuesday, weakened to a depression as it headed toward the Antilles, with the National Hurricane Center discontinuing all warnings about the one-time tropical storm.

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