More help arrives in Mexico

Acapulco, Mexico, Oct.30: More resources are arriving on Mexico's battered Pacific coast, and the death toll from Hurricane Otis is growing as searchers recover more bodies from Acapulco's harbour and under fallen trees and other storm debris.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Saturday that his opponents are trying to inflate the toll to damage him politically, but few expect the latest mark of 39 dead to be where it stops. Hundreds of families are still awaiting word from loved ones.

Otis roared ashore early Wednesday with devastating 165 mph (266 kph) winds after strengthening so rapidly that people had little time to prepare.

Kristian Vera stood on an Acapulco beach Saturday looking out toward dozens of sunken boats, including three of her own, all marked by floating buoys or just poking out of the water.

Despite losing her livelihood in Otis' brutal pass through Mexico's over Pacific coast, the 44-year-old fisher felt fortunate. Earlier in the day, she watched a body pulled from the water and saw families coming and going, looking for their loved ones.

Mexican authorities raised Otis' official toll to 39 dead and 10 missing Saturday. But Vera and others suggested that number will likely grow, in part because of the number of people who rode out on boats during what had started as a tropical storm and in just 12 hours powered up into a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane.

Vera took turns with four others swimming out with empty gas jugs for flotation to try to raise their sunken boats from the shallow harbour.

Leaning against a small wooden fishing boat like her own, tipped on its side on a beach strewn with trash and fallen trees, she explained that some of the people who died were either fishers caring for their boats or yacht captains who were told by their owners that they needed to make sure their boats were OK when Otis was still a tropical storm.

"That night I was so worried because I live off of this, it's how I feed my kids," Vera said. "But when I began to feel how strong the wind was, I said, 'Tomorrow I won't have a boat, but God willing Acapulco will see another day.'"

Earlier Saturday, Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said in a recorded video message with López Obrador posted to the platform X that the probable cause of death for the 39 was "suffocation by submersion." She said that the victims had not yet been identified and that investigations continued. The new death toll was an increase of 12 over the initial tally of 27 announced Thursday. But the storm's human toll was becoming a point of contention. Rodríguez also said the number of missing rose to 10. (AP)