(12:03pm AEST)
Survivors
of Hurricane Pauline on Mexico's Pacific coast are facing shortages of
food and water and rapidly inflating
prices.
Pauline
hit last Thursday killing at least two-hundred people and destroying houses
and farmlands along the coast before
slamming into the city of Acapulco.
A
consumer protection official in the city says shopkeepers are charging
1,000
percent more than usual for water, 500
percent more for tortillas, and 200 percent
more for milk.
The
Mexican Red Cross says it stands by its estimate that 400 people were killed,
Director-general Ricardo Velazquez Sanchez,
re-stated his organisation's estimate
during a visit to Acapulco.
The
government says 149 people died, most of them in Acapulco with perhaps
200
to 300 missing.
Mr
Sanchez says most of the people listed as missing were washed out to sea
or
buried under tonnes of mud and rubble.
=A9 1996 Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Mon Oct 13 12:30:01
1997 ( AEST )
AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of UTC (Greenwich Mean Time)
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