MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Severe flooding led to the deaths of 17 people at a hospital in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo after torrential rains caused the River Tula to burst its banks, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday.
More than 40 other patients in the public hospital in the town of Tula were evacuated by emergency service workers, and an initial assessment showed some 2,000 houses had been affected by flooding, the president’s office said in a statement.
Mexican media reported that 15 out of the 17 people were COVID-19 patients who died after the floods caused by days of heavy rain knocked out electricity at the hospital.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify those reports.
(Reporting by Sharay Angulo, Lizbeth Diaz and Miguel Angel Gutierrez; Editing by Richard Chang)
