There has been continuing devastation. Dozens and dozens of communities have been inundated. Only one example is a colonia between where we live and the City of Veracruz -- just off the main highway -- has ceased to exist because of continuing torrential rains and the flooding, according to El Diario de Xalapa this morning.The colonia, Río Medio. seat of the municipal government of Paso de Ovejas, was located more than ten meters or thirty five feet from the river.
The newspaper quotes a resident, Maximino Gonzáles, as saying: "We have lost everything, everyting, from my house. The only thing left is the deed for my fields, while punching the wall and biting his lips with fury, before crying with impotence. "
According to the paper, "Azucena Rios Olvera could not hold back the tears as he showed us his home of which only remnants remained: the door of the bathroom, buried between rocks and land, the bricks from the bedrooms, the zinc roofing which lay in pieces....
"'From the shelter we saw how the force of the river advanced, eating our lands, our homes; the brutal force with which which the pillars and the platform of the Paso de Oveas bridge fell. The water took on the strength of a tsunami and devoured everything it found in its path....'.
"...[A]mong the neighbors there is anger at the mayor, José Luis Palmeros Sarmiento, who, according to those in the shelter provided by the state government, had said on television an radio that nothing had happened and that everything was under control when the reality was quite different.
"Other residents said there are other places also destroyed.
"Without a single peso in their pockets, with no buildings left to rescue, with the topography of their fields altered, with fears that a new tropical storm will come and with "Jesus in their mouths," since economic activity is now dead, they seek relocation by the state and ask the Patrimony of the State to help them find a ssecure place to live."