Seven people have died in flooding in Mexico this week. On Friday 15 June 2018 a fourteen-year-old boy was swept into a storm drain in Mexico City and drowned, On Tuesday 19 June a woman and a teenage girl died of carbon monoxide poisoning while trapped in a car caught in floodwaters in Aguascalientes, while a landslide killed a man in Guanajuato. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess
pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments,
allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides
are caused by heavy rainfall.On Wednesday 20 June a forty-year-old man drowned in Mexico City, and two people were electrocuted when they touched power cables after climbing onto buildings to escape floodwaters, one in Mexico City and another in the city of Matamoros in Tamaulipas State. Flooding has also been reported in Texas as far north as Houston.
Rainfall in eastern Mexico an southern Texas is driven principally by evaporation of water from the Caribbean, an area which has been suffering exceptionally high temperatures this year. However the flooding has also been linked to rapid urban expansion in many area, which has led to building on areas of historic wetlands, reducing the ability of the ground to absorb water and leading to surface flooding.
Flooding in Weslaco, Texas, on 20 June 2018. Joel Martinez/The Monitor/AP.
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