60 Confirmed Dead in Search for Victims on Mexican Buses; Toll in Caribbean 110

Workers searched Sunday for the bodies of up to 200 people on four buses swept away when a hurricane-induced flash flood poured over a river bank. Sixty people were confirmed dead.

The buses were caught in the path of the Santa Catarina River when torrents of water spawned by Hurricane Gilbert ripped a 40-mile-long path of destruction Saturday through northern Mexico’s most populated region. There was confusion over the number of surviving bus passengers, with figures ranging from two to 13.

It was the epilogue to a week of death and havoc caused by Gilbert, which ravaged the Yucatan Peninsula resort areas of Cancun, Cozumel and Isla Mujeres before crossing the Gulf of Mexico and hitting Mexico again in the northeast near Texas.

The storm killed at least 110 people while coursing the Caribbean, including 29 in the Yucatan, where it hit land last Wednesday with winds gusting up to 200 m.p.h.

The toll included 26 dead in Jamaica, 30 in Haiti, five in the Dominican Republic, eight in Honduras and 12 people, including two rescue workers, in Nicaragua.

Two people were killed Saturday in Texas by tornadoes spawned by the storm.

Texas Rains

Rain from remnants of the hurricane clobbered Texas on Sunday, with bad weather stretching into the lower Plains. Some minor flooding was reported, but winds were calm, tornadoes subsided and officials hoped the worst was over.

“It’s been quiet and we are hoping and praying it stays that way,” said a spokesman for the Texas Emergency Management Center in Austin.

“Most of the rains attributed to Gilbert will probably be over by Monday,” a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Ft. Worth said, “although there is still enough moisture coming in off the gulf to probably keep scattered thunderstorms over Texas for the next couple of days.”

Highest Toll

In Mexico, it was in the north that Gilbert exacted its highest death toll as the most powerful hurricane in recorded history in the Western Hemisphere weakened into a tropical depression.

Gilbert’s rains created a 10-foot-deep, 150-yard-wide torrent of muddy water near Monterrey, an industrial city about 400 miles north of Mexico City. The torrent overwhelmed the four buses packed with people.

By Sunday, the waters had receded, allowing soldiers to use cranes to pull the vehicles from the mud. The first bus yanked from the muddy riverbed revealed only empty seats, twisted metal and piles of shoes and clothing.

Another bus, also upside down and crushed, lay in the gravel on the other side of the stream. The remains of the two others were farther downstream.

Eduardo Pichardo, an employee of the Transportes de la Frontera, said he believes that about 64 people were aboard the two buses from his company that were destroyed in the flood.

It was not known how many other passengers were aboard the other two.

But state officials said the total aboard the four buses was about 200 and that 60 people were confirmed dead.

Four state judicial police officers and two civilian volunteers also drowned when they attempted to rescue victims, state authorities said.

Tourists Stranded

In Cozumel, hundreds of tourists were reportedly still stranded on the battered resort isle, according to returning vacationers.

“The airport was a madhouse,” said Fletcher Walls of Johnson City, Tenn., as he arrived in Atlanta on the way home. “I’m very concerned about the people down there.

“Cozumel is in bad shape,” he added. “There is no electricity on the island and no communications with the mainland.”

Walls said he and his wife, Sandra, were lucky to have been able to get aboard an unscheduled charter flight that left Cozumel late Saturday. “There were fistfights at the airport the day before. The people there are scared.”

Authorities on Cozumel didn’t seemed overly worried about the storm until Tuesday, the couple said. “Everyone seemed to think it would turn northward and miss us,” Walls said. “But the hotel management called a meeting Tuesday night and told the guests that Gilbert . . . apparently would reach Cozumel the next day.”

‘Lock Ourselves in Bathroom’

‘We were given some emergency supplies--candles, drinking water and food--and were told to lock ourselves in the bathroom and prop our mattress up against the bathroom door.

“The storm hit us Wednesday morning about 6:30 and lasted until 2 p.m. It was interesting but I wouldn’t want to do it again,” he said. “We were told some of those wind gusts exceeded 200 miles per hour.”

Meanwhile, in northeastern Mexico, U.S. Coast Guard aircraft from New Orleans were picking up scores of people near Vallecillo that were threatened by swollen rivers as scattered rains continued.

An estimated 20,000 people remained in shelters throughout the area, many left homeless when the flood swept away homes built along the edges of rivers.

Most homes were evacuated hours before the storm hit, but many residents lost their life’s possessions.