Desperate Flood Victims Steal Aid

With help slow in arriving to thousands of people cut off by flooding, desperate residents of one village in Hidalgo state stole aid that was intended for other communities, local officials said Monday.

The theft occurred Sunday, the same day that President Ernesto Zedillo declared that the “critical phase of the emergency” had ended in the central state and that officials could move on to the next steps of rebuilding.

Hidalgo, where eight people died in flooding, was among the states in central and southeastern Mexico hurt by flooding and mudslides that left about 400 people dead, according to official figures. Because authorities still haven’t begun digging for bodies in some of the worst-hit areas, the death toll is expected to be much higher.

Yet with roads washed out, residents of some communities in the mountainous northern and eastern parts of the state have been cut off for more than two weeks.

On Sunday, residents of the village of Hualula managed to reach the municipal seat of Eloxochitlan, where they stole 600 packages of food aid, 200 small mattresses and 100 boxes of potable water from the municipal auditorium, local officials said. That aid was destined for three other communities.

Also Sunday, residents of three other villages blocked a road linking their municipal seat of Tianguistengo to the main federal highway, demanding that machinery be sent to reopen the roads to their communities.

In a telephone interview, Dora Olivares, a Tianguistengo official, said work on opening the roads began Monday.

Zedillo, who continued his almost daily tours of flood-affected areas, visited the municipality of Zacatlan in Puebla state. He lauded government accomplishments in responding to the emergency but acknowledged the difficulty of reaching many communities.

“The fundamental problem is the isolation that still exists for many communities, some very small, others bigger, and that has made indispensable the significant and enormous effort that we have made in recent days to transfer the most critical supplies, by air, to these communities,” he said.

As Mexico moves from the emergency response phase to rebuilding, it faces enormous costs. Government agencies estimate that rebuilding will cost $2 billion, the newspaper El Universal reported.