MEXICO CITY: At least three people died after torrential rain from Tropical Storm Lidia provoked major flooding around Mexico’s popular Los Cabos beach resort on Friday, authorities said.
Featuring maximum sustained winds of 97kph, the storm was projected to move north over a large swathe of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula before turning west toward the Pacific on Sunday.
Local television footage showed abandoned cars and trucks in washed-out roads, as well as destroyed beach-front structures.
Lidia, about 89km north-northeast of Cabo San Lazaro, was moving at a speed of 19 kmh as it skirted the western coast of the peninsula, according to an advisory from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Luis Felipe Puente, the head of national emergency services, told Reuters that the storm claimed a child and two adults who were trying to cross a raging river.
Lidia also provoked power outages, damaged houses and roads, as well as forcing some 2,800 people into local shelters.
While the storm is forecast to further weaken over the next couple of days, it is expected to dump between 15-30cm of rain across the peninsula as well as parts of Sinaloa and Sonora states.
“These rains may cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides,” the NHC said in its advisory.
