Miguel Angel Villegas Escobar says more than a dozen people have been killed in his region, which remains cut off from the rest of the Mexican state of Hidalgo, after torrential rains, overflowing rivers and mud washed out the area’s bridges and roads.

Villegas Escobar, regional director of primary education in the village of Chahuaco, in the landlocked state of Hidalgo, said over WhatsApp voice messages that whole families in the region had been swept away by widespread flooding caused by rains that fell over four days last week across five Gulf Coast and central states.

He said he knows 15 people in the municipality of Tianguistengo — which includes several villages like Chahuaco — who’ve been killed in the flooding and buried by mud.

There are still two people missing from the neighb

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