As the sun rose over Poza Rica, a city built on oil and grit near Mexico’s Gulf Coast, Lilia Ramírez surveyed her home’s battered ground floor. Pink-painted walls were now streaked with black, the residue of oil swept in by floodwaters that had surged through the city just days prior. Ramírez’s experience is emblematic of the devastation wrought by torrential rains that battered central and southeastern Mexico from October 6 to 9, 2025, leaving a trail of destruction across five states.
By October 13, the death toll had climbed to at least 64, with another 65 people still missing, according to the National Civil Protection Coordination (CNPC) chief, Laura Velazquez Alzua, as reported by AP and Al Jazeera. The hardest-hit states were Veracruz, with 29 confirmed deaths, Hidalgo with 21, Puebla with 13, and Queretaro with one. These numbers, officials warned, could rise as rescue teams continued to reach isolated areas cut off by landslides and overflowing rivers.
The scale of the disaster is staggering. President Claudia Sheinbaum, addressing the nation during her daily briefing, estimated that about 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. In some riverside communities, entire neighborhoods had “practically disappeared.” The president emphasized, “There are sufficient resources. There will be no skimping on that,” adding that her administration had $867 million set aside for disaster relief this year, as reported by The New York Times.
But for many residents, government assurances offered little comfort. In Poza Rica, frustration boiled over as Sheinbaum visited the region. Angry crowds confronted her, holding up cellphone photos of missing loved ones and demanding answers. One young student, speaking from the back of a pickup truck, declared, “We have been here for three days, cleaning up. What good is it to have you here?” Sheinbaum, facing the crowd, promised, “We are going to help everyone. Nothing will be hidden.”
Throughout the five affected states—Veracruz, Hidalgo, Puebla, Queretaro, and San Luis Potosí—the destruction was driven by an extraordinary deluge. Some towns, according to government figures, received around 20 inches (roughly 500 millimeters) of rain in just four days. The heaviest rainfall was recorded on October 8 in Veracruz’s Cerro Azul (280mm) and Puebla’s Cuetzalan del Progreso (286mm), as noted by Al Jazeera. Meteorologists attributed the downpours to the remnants of Hurricane Priscilla and Tropical Storm Raymond, which had formed off Mexico’s western coast and then dissipated, unleashing their moisture over the country’s center and east.
The result was catastrophic: rivers burst their banks, landslides buried roads, and entire communities became inaccessible. In Veracruz alone, dozens of towns remained cut off by ground as of October 13, forcing authorities to deploy helicopters to deliver food, water, and medical supplies. “A lot of flights are required to take sufficient food and water to those places,” Sheinbaum explained, acknowledging the logistical hurdles facing rescue teams.
Mexico’s response was swift but tested by the magnitude of the crisis. Some 10,000 troops—drawn from the Army, Air Force, and National Guard—were mobilized to assist with evacuations, distribute aid, and conduct search-and-rescue operations. The military’s expanding role in disaster relief has been a defining feature of recent years, especially after the dissolution of a special disaster fund by Sheinbaum’s predecessor, as The New York Times highlighted. While the military’s rapid deployment has been praised in past emergencies, critics argue that the lack of local knowledge and the loss of dedicated disaster funding have complicated recovery efforts, particularly in poorer and more remote communities.
In addition to rescue and relief operations, nearly 400 repair workers were dispatched to restore electricity to the more than 263,000 users who lost power during the storms. By Monday, over 80 percent of the affected areas had electricity restored, according to officials cited by Al Jazeera. Health teams were also deployed to prevent outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses such as dengue, a common threat in post-flood environments.
For residents like Ramírez and her neighbor Roberto Olvera, the ordeal was made even more harrowing by the presence of oil in the floodwaters—a legacy of Poza Rica’s long-standing oil industry. Olvera recalled that a siren from a nearby Pemex facility had warned them of the impending danger. “It was a really anguishing moment because a lot of people from the neighborhood stayed behind and some perished,” he told AP. Pemex, the state oil company, said it had no reports of a spill, but Ramírez noted that in previous floods, Pemex had drained oil from nearby areas to prevent contamination.
Despite the scale of the tragedy, President Sheinbaum defended the government’s response and Mexico’s alert systems. She insisted there were “no scientific or meteorological conditions that could have indicated to us that the rainfall would be of this magnitude,” a sentiment echoed by meteorologists who said the storms’ remnants were unpredictable. “It would have been difficult to have had much advance knowledge of this situation, (it’s) different from with hurricanes,” Sheinbaum said, as reported by AP.
Still, the disaster has reignited debate over Mexico’s preparedness for extreme weather events—a risk that experts say is only growing as climate change intensifies storms worldwide. While it’s difficult to attribute any single event directly to global warming, scientists agree that warmer air holds more moisture, making intense rainfall more likely.
In the aftermath, Sheinbaum promised both immediate relief and long-term investment in flood control. She outlined plans to dredge rivers, build embankments, rebuild bridges, and raise pumping stations in the affected states. The financial toll, she acknowledged, would be significant, adding to the burden of recent disasters such as Hurricane Otis in 2023.
As search and rescue teams continue their work and communities begin the long process of recovery, the images of oil-streaked homes, angry crowds, and isolated villages serve as a stark reminder of both the power of nature and the challenges of disaster response in a changing climate. For the families of the missing and the thousands left homeless, the road ahead will be long—but the nation’s attention, for now, is firmly fixed on their plight.
