ACAPULCO, Mexico — Emergency flights began arriving in Acapulco Tuesday to evacuate some of the tens of thousands of tourists stranded in the resort city by flooding and landslides that shut down the highway to Mexico City and swamped the international airport.
The death toll rose to 47 from the combined punch of Tropical Storm Manuel, which hit Acapulco and hundreds of miles of Mexico’s Pacific Coast, and Hurricane Ingrid, which battered the Gulf Coast during the weekend.
About 60,000 tourists, many of whom traveled from Mexico City for a long holiday weekend, found themselves stranded in Acapulco.
Although many hotels were operating normally, many neighborhoods of the city lacked water or power service.
Federal officials said it could take at least another day to open the main highway to Acapulco, which was hit by more than 13 landslides, and to bring relief supplies into the city of more than 800,000.
Commercial airlines and the Mexican military set up a service to take tourists to a nearby concert hall instead of the terminal, which was flooded with knee-deep water. Runways have been cleared.