- Phillies win thriller to level Mets series
- Yu bags first PGA Tour win with playoff win
- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- AC Milan fall at Fiorentina after De Gea's penalty heroics
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Lewandowski hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- India maintain Pakistan stranglehold as Windies cruise at Women's T20 World Cup
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- Maresca hails Chelsea's 'fighting' spirit after draw with 10-man Forest
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Arshdeep, Chakravarthy help India hammer Bangladesh in T20 opener
- Lewandowski's quickfire hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
Mexico races to help battered Acapulco after major hurricane
Mexican authorities rushed to send emergency aid, restore communications and assess damage in the Pacific beach resort of Acapulco on Wednesday after a powerful hurricane left a trail of destruction.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador personally joined an official convoy heading for the seaside city by road, despite reports of landslides and other debris blocking the way.
"The army is bringing machinery and we're going to try to reopen (the highway) as soon as possible," he told journalists who were also trying to reach Acapulco.
Images emerging via social media pointed to significant damage after Hurricane Otis came ashore overnight as a "potentially catastrophic" Category 5 storm.
Lopez Obrador said earlier that there were no initial reports of deaths but "there's material damage and blocked roads."
Officials emphasized that the lack of communications made it difficult to know the full impact of the storm in Acapulco, home to about 780,000 people.
A convoy carrying humanitarian aid also set off to try to reach the city by land since it was impossible to fly there, authorities said.
"The urgent thing is to attend to the affected population. We still don't have the damage assessment because there's no communication," Civil Protection national coordinator Laura Velazquez said.
Even the navy and military were "seriously affected," she added.
Otis was packing maximum sustained winds of 165 miles (265 kilometers) per hour when it hit the coast, but later dissipated over southern Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The storm had rapidly strengthened to the most powerful category of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as it neared land, taking authorities by surprise.
"Rarely, according to records, does a hurricane develop so quickly and with such force," Lopez Obrador said.
- Tourists take shelter -
Videos posted on social media showed severely damaged hotels and other buildings, including shattered windows.
Tourists were seen using beds and mattresses as protective barriers in their hotel rooms.
Others took refuge in bathrooms.
Toppled trees were seen in the debris-strewn streets and a shopping mall appeared to have suffered major structural damage.
Before the storm hit, many people bought last-minute supplies of food and water, with some businesses and homeowners boarding up their windows in Acapulco, located in the southern state of Guerrero.
More than 500 emergency shelters were opened for residents.
There were widespread power blackouts, though state electricity company CFE said Wednesday that it had managed to restore supply to 40 percent of the more than half a million affected customers.
Heavy rains continued to deluge Guerrero and parts of neighboring Oaxaca -- two of Mexico's poorest states, home to remote mountain communities.
"This rainfall will produce flash and urban flooding, along with mudslides in areas of higher terrain," the NHC warned.
Hurricanes hit Mexico every year on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, usually between May and November, though few make landfall as a Category 5.
In October 1997, Hurricane Pauline hit Mexico's Pacific coast as a Category 4 storm, leaving more than 200 people dead, some of them in Acapulco.
It was one of the deadliest hurricanes to batter Mexico.
In October 2015, Patricia became the most powerful hurricane ever recorded, pummeling Mexico's Pacific coast with sustained winds of 200 miles per hour.
But the storm caused only material damage and no deaths as it made landfall in a sparsely populated mountainous area.
Just this week, Tropical Storm Norma left three people dead, including a child, after making landfall for a second time in the northwestern state of Sinaloa.
Earlier this month, two people died when Hurricane Lidia, an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm, struck the western states of Jalisco and Nayarit.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer with climate change.
P.Stevenson--AMWN