Mexico's government has intensified efforts to get the stricken coastal city of Acapulco back on its feet as the toll of dead and missing from a record-breaking hurricane that ravaged the iconic beach resort continued to rise.
Hurricane Otis ripped through Acapulco as a Category 5 storm on Wednesday, wrecking homes, hotels and businesses with 266km/h winds which downed power lines and communications, leaving the city of nearly 900,000 inhabitants incommunicado.
Looting broke out as food, water and gasoline become scarce after the destruction caused by Otis, which the government said had killed 48 people, with another 36 unaccounted for. A day earlier, the toll stood at 39 dead and 10 missing.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said most of his cabinet was already in or headed for Acapulco, and that he would return there later on Sunday to lead recovery efforts as thousands of soldiers and police descended on the city.
"We're going to get Acapulco back on its feet, starting with its people," he said in a video on social media.
Dozens of pieces of broken boats dotted the bay, with smashed yachts and dinghies piled up on the shore.
Captain Alejandro Cortez, 66, abandoned his yacht when he saw the hurricane picking up speed.
"We ran, we jumped down, and we left the ship all alone," he recounted from a pier where he gazed at the water, remembering waves seven meters high.
"And that's why I'm sitting here now. God gave me that decision."
The cost of damage could climb as high as $US15 billion ($A24 billion) according to estimates, and Lopez Obrador said the ministers of finance and the economy would be in Acapulco on Monday. He also invited the Mexican central bank governor to travel there.
Residents in flooded areas have criticised the lack of government help. Many are struggling to find food and water.
"I was cleaned out, left with nothing," said Blanca Estela Morales, a wheelchair-bound 52-year-old staying in a government-run shelter after her home was flooded. "This is really hard for me - we sleep on the floor, we don't have water to wash with."
The disaster struck Acapulco barely seven months away from Mexico's next presidential election, and Lopez Obrador accused his critics of attacking his response to Otis and inflating its impact for electoral reasons.
His fiery political broadsides triggered criticism that Lopez Obrador was downplaying the gravity of the disaster, even as families desperately searched for missing relatives and more drowned victims were recovered from Acapulco's bay.
Former president Felipe Calderon, a longstanding adversary of Lopez Obrador, accused his administration of trying to exploit the situation by "rebranding" boxes of private aid contributions to Acapulco as "government" donations.
Reuters could not immediately verify how boxes with such donations had been marked.
Mexico has sent some 17,000 members of the armed forces to keep order and help distribute tonnes of food and supplies in Acapulco, the biggest city in the southern state of Guerrero.
Clean up efforts are likely to take time, and the government has said Otis had damaged 220,035 homes in Guerrero - a number just shy of the 223,924 homes registered in Acapulco in 2020.
Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado said electricity has been restored to 58 per cent of Acapulco, and that officials had visited 10,000 families in the area to assess damage.
Lopez Obrador said he expected electricity to be fully restored in the city by Tuesday.
