Mexico mourns 66 dead after twin punch of quake, hurricane

JUCHITAN, (AP) -- Amid the sounds of snare drums, saxophones and sobbing, Mexicans yesterday began mourning some of the 66 dead after a one-two punch from a monster earthquake and a Gulf coast hurricane.

Hardest hit was Juchitan, an Oaxaca state city where 36 people died when the magnitude 8.1 quake toppled buildings.

Slow-moving funeral processions converged on one of Juchitan's cemeteries from all directions yesterday sometimes causing temporary gridlock when they encountered each other at intersections.

The cemetery swelled with mourners and noisy serenades for the dead. Pallbearers carried the caskets around rubble the quake had knocked from the simple concrete crypts.

Jittery amid continued aftershocks, friends and relatives of the deceased had hushed conversations in the Zapotec language as they stood under umbrellas for shade from the beating sun.

Paulo Cesar Escamilla Matus and his family held a memorial service for his mother, Reynalda Matus Martinez, in the living room of her home, where relatives quietly wept beside her body.

The 64-year-old woman was working the night shift at a neighbourhood pharmacy when the quake struck Thursday night, collapsing the building.

"All the weight of the second floor fell on top of her," said her son, who rushed to the building and found her under rubble. He and neighbours tried to dig her out, but weren't able to recover her body until the next morning when civil defense workers brought a backhoe that could lift what had trapped her.

Scenes of mourning were repeated over and over again in Juchitan, where a third of the city's homes collapsed or were uninhabitable, President Enrique Pena Nieto said late last Friday in an interview with the Televisa news network. Part of the city hall collapsed.

Power was cut at least briefly to more than 1.8 million people due to the quake, and authorities closed schools in at least 11 states to check them for safety.

The Interior Department reported that 428 homes were destroyed and 1,700 were damaged just in Chiapas, the state closest to the epicentre.

Just one day later, Hurricane Katia hit land north of Tecolutla in Veracruz state, pelting the region with intense rains and maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120) kph.

Veracruz Gov. Miguel Angel Yunes said two people died in a mudslide related to the storm, and he said some rivers had risen to near flood stage, but there were no reports of major damage.