Top winds from Hurricane Otis are weakening with its move across southern Mexico, drenching the region with flooding rains after coming ashore near the resort city of Acapulco as the strongest storm ever to hit the country.
Mexico’s government has sent rescue teams to Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located, and set up shelters, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday in a press conference.
Infrastructure is damaged, including broken sections on the motorway to Acapulco.
A military airport has been partially destroyed and there is no possibility of flying into the area.
The government does not have information on casualties since it cannot contact teams on the ground.
“The hurricane hit very hard, very hard in Guerrero in the Big Coast throughout the stretch from Tecpan to Acapulco,” Mr Lopez Obrador said. “Communications have been completely lost.”
Mexico’s national power company, Comision Federal de Electricidad, said it had restored supply to 40 per cent of those affected in Guerrero.
Otis came ashore at 12.25am local time as a Category 5 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with winds of 266kph – enough power to tear homes and businesses apart.
Initial estimates say top winds increased faster than any other storm on record in the eastern Pacific, though postseason analysis may change that, Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said in an interview.
“This is the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in Mexico on record, though formal records for the eastern Pacific only extend back to around 1950,” said Ryan Truchelut of commercial forecaster WeatherTiger.
While weakening, the storm is still deadly: the hurricane is hitting the region with life-threatening storm surge and pelting southern Mexico’s Pacific coast with massive waves, according to the US National Hurricane Centre. Otis is packing maximum sustained winds of about 130kph, making it a Category 1 storm early on Wednesday.
“Damaging hurricane-force winds will spread inland over southern Mexico this morning with extremely destructive winds near the core during the next few hours,” the NHC said. The storm’s centre was about 100km north-west of Acapulco.
While Otis is expected to dissipate later Wednesday, it could bring as much as 51cm of rain in some areas through Thursday, accompanied by floods and mudslides.
As climate change warms the world’s oceans, providing fuel for hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, rapid intensification of storms is happening more often. Such developments are dangerous because it can take coastal residents and emergency officials by surprise when a storm has a huge burst of strength right before landfall.
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NYBL PROFILE
Company name: Nybl
Date started: November 2018
Founder: Noor Alnahhas, Michael LeTan, Hafsa Yazdni, Sufyaan Abdul Haseeb, Waleed Rifaat, Mohammed Shono
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Software Technology / Artificial Intelligence
Initial investment: $500,000
Funding round: Series B (raising $5m)
Partners/Incubators: Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 4, Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 6, AI Venture Labs Cohort 1, Microsoft Scale-up
Planes grounded by coronavirus
British Airways: Cancels all direct flights to and from mainland China
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific: Cutting capacity to/from mainland China by 50 per cent from Jan. 30
Chicago-based United Airlines: Reducing flights to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong
Ai Seoul: Suspended all flights to China
Finnair: Suspending flights to Nanjing and Beijing Daxing until the end of March
Indonesia's Lion Air: Suspending all flights to China from February
South Korea's Asiana Airlines, Jeju Air and Jin Air: Suspend all flights
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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'Peninsula'
Stars: Gang Dong-won, Lee Jung-hyun, Lee Ra
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Rating: 2/5
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates