Mexico to revise 2014 budget in wake of devastating storms

Mexico's Congress will revise its proposed 2014 budget in the wake of some of the worst storm damage in decades, President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Sunday as the death toll from widespread flooding and mudslides rose to about 115.

Two storms hit Mexico early this week, causing torrential rain and subsequent landslides. More than two-thirds of the country of 112 million people has been affected by the deluge.

The government earlier this month said it aimed to run a budget deficit this year and next as it forges ahead with spending on infrastructure. It must now find additional funds to repair roads and infrastructure hammered by the storms.

Pena Nieto said Mexico's Congress "will absolutely have to adjust" the federal budget in light of the mounting destruction caused by Tropical Storm Ingrid and Hurricane Manuel over the past week.

"Today we can already anticipate that due to the damages that we've seen, our (emergency) funds are insufficient," said Pena Nieto in a speech in the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

He did not specify new funding levels beyond the roughly $938 million available in emergency funding.

Mexico's president called for a quick state-by-state evaluation of damage to be overseen by the country's interior minister that "will allow us to add resources beyond those already budgeted for contingency and disaster funds to rebuild infrastructure that has sadly been lost."

"We are confronting rainfall that has practically been the most extensive in the history of the entire national territory," he added. At least two more people died when a Black Hawk rescue helicopter crashed on a hillside near the stricken village of La Pintada in southern Guerrero state, the government said late on Saturday night. Only the deaths of two pilots and a mechanic were confirmed from the accident previously, and the additional two victims were listed as rescue workers.

Meanwhile, nearly 70 people remained missing after a mudslide caused by torrential rains buried 40 homes in La Pintada.

Pena Nieto said on Saturday that there was little hope anyone had survived the mudslide in the village.

Guerrero state, home to the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, has been the hardest hit by heavy rains unleashed by Hurricane Manuel.

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of tourists made their way out of the heavily flooded beach city, either by special airlift planes or via the city's main highway, which reopened on Friday.

The city's international airport reopened to commercial flights on Sunday morning.

But more than 22,000 homes were listed as damaged in Guerrero and as many as 20,000 people remained in shelters, according to Angel Aguirre, the state's governor.

Mudslides and flooding have buried homes and wrecked highways and bridges in all but two of the country's 31 states, according to government officials.

Al Jazeera and wire services