Death toll from torrential rains in Mexico rises to 64 as search expands

POZA RICA, Mexico (AP) — Fifteen minutes before water from a flooded stream swept into her home, Lilia Ramírez took off running with what little she could carry. When she returned she found not only damage from the water that had flooded her first floor to the ceiling, but the oil it had carried now streaking her walls.

Poza Rica is an oil town, and among the challenges confronting some residents who fled flooding that has killed 64 people across five states and left 65 missing, is residue from the oil that built this city not far from the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities say some 100,000 homes across the region have been damaged by the torrential rains and flooding.

“Never before has it been tarred before like that,” Ramírez said Monday standing in her devastated ground floor, where walls that had once been pink were now vertically striped with black.

Mexico has deployed some 10,000 troops in addition to civilian rescue teams. Helicopters have ferried food and water to the 200 some communities that remained cut off by ground and carried out the sick and injured.

“There are sufficient resources, this won’t be skimped on ... because we’re still in the emergency period,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said during her daily press briefing Monday.

But on some streets in Poza Rica, 170 miles (275 kilometers) northeast of Mexico City, the cleanup of mud and debris was complicated by thick oil deposits on trees, roofs and vehicles tossed by the current that swept through Friday.

Parts of Veracruz state received some 24.7 inches (62.7 centimeters) of rain from Oct. 6 to 9.

Ramírez said that at other times of heavy rains, the state oil company Pemex had drained nearby areas with oil to avoid it spreading.

Roberto Olvera, one of her neighbors, said that a siren from a nearby Pemex facility alerted them to danger. “It was a really anguishing moment because a lot of people from the neighborhood stayed behind and some perished,” he said.

Pemex said in a brief statement to the AP that so far it did not have reports of an oil spill in the area.

Sheinbaum acknowledged it could still be days before access is established to some places. “A lot of flights are required to take sufficient food and water” to those places, she said.

The president denied that government systems had failed to provide sufficient warning. “It would have been difficult to have had much advance knowledge of this situation, (it's) different from with hurricanes,” she said.

Mexico’s Civil Protection agency said the heavy rains had killed 29 people in Veracruz state on the Gulf Coast as of Monday morning, and 21 people in Hidalgo state, north of Mexico City. At least 13 were killed in Puebla, east of Mexico City. Earlier, in the central state of Querétaro, a child died in a landslide.

Authorities have attributed the deadly downpours to two tropical systems that formed off the western coast of Mexico and have since dissipated, Hurricane Pricilla and Tropical Storm Raymond.

This version has corrected that Olvera is a neighbor not a husband of another person quoted in the story.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

A rescue worker, part of the volunteer brigade known as the Topos, works near a car hanging over a fence by a damaged house in Poza Rica, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, after torrential rains. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

People clean the Ramirez family's flooded house in Poza Rica, Veracruz state, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, after torrential rains. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A plush toy lies in the mud inside a flooded house in Poza Rica, Veracruz state, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, after torrential rains. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

People clean the Olvera Gomez family's house in Poza Rica, Veracruz state, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, after torrential rains. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Damaged vehicles sit in mud after flooding in Poza Rica, Veracruz state, Mexico, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

COTONOU, Benin (AP) — A coup that was announced in Benin on Sunday has been “foiled,” the interior minister said in a video on Facebook.

“In the early morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, a small group of soldiers launched a mutiny with the aim of destabilizing the state and its institutions,” Alassane Seidou said. “Faced with this situation, the Beninese Armed Forces and their leadership, true to their oath, remained committed to the republic.”

Earlier, a group of soldiers had appeared on Benin ’s state TV Sunday to announce the dissolution of the government in an apparent coup, the latest of many in West Africa.

The group, which called itself the Military Committee for Refoundation, announced the removal of the president and all state institutions. Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri was appointed president of the military committee, the soldiers said.

Following its independence from France in 1960, the West African nation witnessed multiple coups, especially in the decades following its independence. Since 1991, the country has been politically stable following the two-decade rule of Marxist-Leninist Mathieu Kérékou.

There has been no official news about President Patrice Talon since gunshots were heard around the presidential residence. However, the signal to the state television and public radio which was cut off has now been restored.

The regional bloc, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), condemned the short-lived coup in a statement.

“ECOWAS strongly condemns this unconstitutional move that represents a subversion of the will of the people of Benin. ... ECOWAS will support the Government and the people in all forms necessary to defend the Constitution and the territorial integrity of Benin,” the bloc said in a statement.

Talon has been in power since 2016 and was due to step down next April after the presidential election.

Talon’s party pick, former Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni, is the favorite to win the election. Opposition candidate Renaud Agbodjo was rejected by the electoral commission on the grounds that he did not have sufficient sponsors.

In January, two associates of Talon were sentenced to 20 years in prison for an alleged 2024 coup plot.

Last month, the country’s legislature extended the presidential term of office from five to seven years, keeping the term limit at two.

The coup is the latest in a string of military takeovers that have rocked West Africa. Last month, a military coup in Guinea-Bissau removed former President Umaro Embalo after a contested election in which both he and the opposition candidate declared themselves winners.

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Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria.

FILE - Benin's President Patrice Talon attends a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on May 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)