[Source: Reuters]

Hurricane Otis claimed the lives of at least 27 people, Mexico’s government said on Thursday after one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the country hammered the beach resort of Acapulco, causing damage seen running into billions of dollars.

Otis, which struck Mexico Wednesday as a Category 5 storm, flooded streets, ripped roofs off homes and hotels, submerged cars and cut communications, road and air access, leaving a trail of wreckage across Acapulco, a city of nearly 900,000.

Four people are still missing, the government said.

“What Acapulco suffered was really disastrous,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a press conference in Mexico City tallying the damage from the storm, which ripped into southern Mexico with winds of 165 miles per hour (266 kph).

Otis, which intensified unexpectedly rapidly off the Pacific coast, was so powerful it tore large trees up by the roots, scattering debris all over Acapulco. It flooded hospitals, and hundreds of patients had to be evacuated to safer areas.

Erik Lozoya, a professional magician, said he endured “three hours of terror” with his wife and two baby daughters in an Acapulco hotel room as the hurricane smashed through the windows and swept through the building with a deafening intensity.

“It literally felt as though our ears were going to explode,” said the 26-year-old Lozoya, who barricaded himself in a bathroom with his family and four others. “We saw mattresses, water tanks flying. The ceiling began to cave in.”

The family left the bathroom, but the eighth-floor room soon began to flood, and Lozoya had to stand carrying his daughters with water up to his ankles for two hours because the wind was so strong they could not open the door to get out.

The hurricane peeled off sections of buildings in downtown Acapulco. Some Mexican media posted videos of looting in the city. Reuters could not immediately confirm their veracity.

The government has so far not estimated the cost of Otis, but Enki Research, which tracks tropical storms and models the cost of their damage, saw it “likely approaching $15 billion.”

The people still missing are believed to be members of the navy, said Lopez Obrador, who went to Acapulco on Wednesday by road, changing his vehicle more than once as the storm caused him hold-ups, according to pictures published on social media.

One showed him sitting in a military jeep stuck in mud.

On Thursday afternoon, the government said the air traffic control tower of Acapulco’s international airport was up and running again and that an air bridge enabling tourists to reach Mexico City would be operating from Friday.

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