Seventeen patients, most of them suffering from Covid-19, have died after a hospital in central Mexico flooded when torrential rain caused a river to burst its banks.
More than 40 other patients in the public hospital in the town of Tula in Hidalgo state were evacuated by emergency service workers on Tuesday, and an initial assessment showed about 2,000 houses had flood damage, the Mexican government said in a statement.
Hidalgo’s governor, Omar Fayad, told local media that 15 or 16 out of the 17 fatalities were Covid-19 patients.
The media said the deaths occurred when flooding caused by days of rain caused the Tula river to overflow and knock out electricity at the hospital.
In pictures shared by Fayad on social media, desperate nurses were pushing beds out of the hospital to try to bring patients to safety. Some nurses were up to their knees in water.
Video footage also showed how patients, some of them intubated, were moved out into speedboats.
President Andrés Manuel López Obradorr on Twitter urged residents at risk to seek out shelters, areas of higher ground or to go to friends or relatives. “A lot of rain has fallen in the Valley of Mexico and it will keep raining,” he said.
