Mexico registers 48 deaths in two months of intense heat

Mexico registers 48 deaths due to the intense heat season it has suffered since last March, the government reported this Friday, at a time when Mexico City is registering temperature records and scientists warn that temperature records could rise in the coming days. An epidemiological report from the Ministry of Health, with data up to May 21, also details that 956 people have suffered various effects due to high temperatures.

“In the current hot season (which began on March 17 and will last until October 5), there is a total of (…) 48 deaths nationwide,” states the report sent to the press by the secretariat. of health. The state of Veracruz (east), with an extensive coastline on the Gulf of Mexico, registers the highest number of deaths, with 14, followed by Tabasco (south), San Luis Potosí (north) and Tamaulipas (northeast) with eight each. one. In 2023, a record number of deaths was set with 419 in the almost eight months that the hot season lasts in Mexico, according to official statistics.

“This heat situation (…) is exceptional,” the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had said in his press conference this Friday. “It is a very unfortunate natural phenomenon, which does have to do with climate change,” added the president, emphasizing that high temperatures accompanied by little wind exacerbate the pollution problem in Mexico City.

Ice storm in Puebla

Meanwhile, an electrical storm, with heavy rain and hail, left flooded streets, huge blocks of hail and multiple material damage this Friday in the Mexican city of Puebla, capital of the state of the same name. Up to two meters of hail accumulated in some areas during the hour and a half of the storm.

Faced with this scenario, the governor of the state of Puebla, Sergio Salomón Céspedes, activated a care and emergency plan, which was coordinated with agents of the Mexican Army. “I have had communication with the State Civil Protection, the Secretariat of National Defense, the National Guard, Firefighters and with the municipal president, Adán Domínguez, to update and address the damage caused by the recent rains with the presence of hail, mainly in the capital. Puebla,” said the state president in a message on social networks.

“I have instructed that we act diligently and remain coordinated to respond immediately to falling trees and flooded areas,” he added. Likewise, he mentioned that the municipality of Atlixco is also under surveillance like others in the metropolitan area of ​​Puebla, with the aim of serving the thousands of affected citizens.