Mexico Defends Its Flood Relief Efforts

President Ernesto Zedillo acknowledged Monday that many Mexican villages were still desperate for food nearly a week after being devastated by floods, but he chastised politicians who have criticized the government relief effort.

“It’s simply not fair to take advantage of this tragedy to gain space in a newspaper or TV or radio news show,” declared the president, who then donned a red slicker and sloshed through the muddy remains of a shattered neighborhood in Puebla state.

The president spoke as thousands of soldiers and ordinary citizens struggled to shovel mounds of mud from roads and send food, medicine and blankets to waterlogged communities.

The federal government said Monday that 328 people died after record rains lashed Tabasco, Veracruz, Hidalgo and Puebla states in central Mexico last week. But local media reported that more than 400 perished. There were unconfirmed reports of scores more dead in isolated villages.

More than 64,000 people were packed into shelters set up in schools, churches and railway stations.

Even as many victims struggled to clear away mud and salvage furniture from battered homes, they were pelted again Monday with rain that turned streets into brown soup. The rain frustrated efforts to supply mountain villages via helicopter. It also caused fresh flooding in Tizayuca in Hidalgo state. The rain was forecast to continue today.

The government has been assailed by politicians and flood victims who have complained of poorly coordinated relief efforts, improper control of dams and shoddy preparations for the disaster.

One of the most stinging rebukes came from a member of the president’s own Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The fund-raising group for Roberto Madrazo, who is on leave as governor of Tabasco to seek the PRI presidential nomination, sent a letter to Zedillo complaining that the president was neglecting the state for political reasons. Madrazo is the top rival to Francisco Labastida, widely perceived as the president’s favorite in the PRI primary Nov. 7.

“In other states [hit by flooding], assistance plans are being drawn up in different federal areas: agriculture, social development, health, education, etc. And in Tabasco no one has bothered even to put out an official communique. Why, Mr. President?” demanded the letter.

Zedillo, who canceled a scheduled state visit this week to Spain and Germany, defended his government’s efforts. On Monday, he visited Teziutlan, a manufacturing hub in Puebla state that appears to be the city hit hardest by the flooding. At least 124 people died in the city, most in a mudslide that tore a community from a hillside.

Speaking in a community hall packed with relatives of victims, Zedillo acknowledged that many communities were still without aid. But he said nature was to blame.

“Naturally, people are telling us that they are in a very difficult situation. They are sending messages that they need water, they need food, they need medicine--and certainly we are going to help, but unfortunately we have this circumstance of the weather and the destruction of roads and highways that is making the relief effort much harder,” the president said.

Nongovernmental relief agencies agreed Monday that the delay in delivering aid was due to foggy, rainy weather and roads that had washed away.

“In some places, although trucks come with food and water, there are mudslides. So they can’t pass. The aid has to be sent on a mule, or horse, or with people who carry the boxes on their shoulders. And maybe these people walk [three or four miles] and find another mudslide,” said Aldo Pontecorvo, coordinator of emergency efforts for Caritas, a Roman Catholic charity, in Mexico City.

But such explanations meant little to people faced with hunger, thirst and the destruction of their homes.

Some bystanders in Teziutlan shouted angrily at Zedillo, demanding that he seek aid from the United States. The Mexican government has said that it will handle the emergency itself.

Residents of Teziutlan have complained that local officials were overwhelmed by the disaster.

“If they could just give us two big pipes we could rebuild the bridge here ourselves,” Jorge Cruz Juarez, a 37-year-old auto body shop employee, said as he gestured toward a severed footbridge over a raging stream in the city. “The bureaucracy doesn’t know how to deal with these problems. We have been like beggars waiting for help when they could use us to help get things working again.”

Despite the wet weather and logistical obstacles, the government said it had sent flood victims more than 11,800 gallons of water and tons of food and medicine. Government medical brigades have fanned out through the disaster area, treating the sick.

Times staff writer James F. Smith contributed to this report.