Nora causes damage in Mexico after pouring torrential rains and turns into storm

By Alfonso Lepe

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico, Aug.29 (Reuters) – Nora turned into a tropical storm on Sunday after hitting Mexico’s west coast like a hurricane, in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, with torrential downpours and gusty winds that swept through the waters of the Pacific Ocean. caused damage in several states, including some tourist ports.

The Nora center made landfall on Saturday as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale near the municipality of Tomatlán, in the state of Jalisco, and since then it has continued its movement along of the coast.

Rains and high winds have caused flooding, damage to stretches of roads, river overflows, power outages and tree felling in the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero and Colima, officials say civil protection and social media publications.

In those states, where shelters have been set up and preventive evacuations have been carried out in dozens of communities, are popular resorts such as Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo and Acapulco.

A building collapsed in flooding on the streets of central Puerto Vallarta after a river overflowed that also shattered a bridge, causing damage to dozens of homes and businesses in the area, said a Reuters witness.

Local media said a minor who lived in the collapsed building was missing. Authorities had reported no deaths or injuries.

“This hurricane leaves a lot of rain, a lot of water,” César Guzmán, director of civil protection for the state of Nayarit, neighboring Jalisco, said in a television interview.

According to the United States National Hurricane Center, Nora was located at 1800 GMT 135 kilometers (km) northwest of Mazatlán, in the state of Sinaloa, blowing maximum sustained winds of 110 kilometers per hour (km / h) while moving northwest at 20 km / h.

The cyclone’s movement is expected to slow to the northwest from Sunday evening through Tuesday and Nora will continue to move parallel to the west coast. It will also continue to pour heavy rain as it heads towards the Gulf of California.

The National Water Commission of Mexico (Conagua) said in a statement that Nora will promote torrential rains and heavy waves in places of Nayarit and Sinaloa, and intense in the regions of Baja California Sur, Chiapas, Durango, Guerrero , Jalisco, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla and Sonora.

Hurricane Grace killed eight people last week after striking as a powerful Category 3 cyclone in Veracruz state in the Gulf of Mexico.

(Report by Miguel Angel Gutiérrez and Stefanie Eschenbacheren in Mexico City)