‘The hurricane was ugly. The people were worse.’

TROOPS and federal police moved in yesterday to quell looting at stores and shopping centres ripped open by Hurricane Wilma, while hunger and frustration mounted among residents and tourists stranded in one of Mexico’s most prosperous resorts.

Hundreds of people emptied entire downtown blocks of merchandise on Sunday, hiding when soldiers appeared, then returning to tear down metal shutters and haul off clothing, appliances and anything else they could find.

Police shot in the air to scare away looters, and some crowds responded by throwing rocks and chunks of concrete. Officers evacuated more than 30 foreigners from one area, fearing the mobs might turn on tourists.

Yesterday, federal troops and police threw up checkpoints to look for stolen goods and sent out patrols to chase crowds away from shops. More than 200 people were reported arrested.

Looting seemed to be stopped, but many stores were already stripped bare.

Floodwaters waist deep at the height of the storm had largely receded, leaving streets littered with debris.

Most of the city was still without electricity.

The looting shocked many Mexicans. National television networks on Monday ran images of dozens of looters working through stores like swarms of ants, then packing loot into cars, trucks and precariously loaded bicycles.

Arturo Campos, whose shoe store was cleaned out by thieves, said: “The hurricane was ugly. The people were worse.”

President Vicente Fox, who toured the region yesterday, ordered the army to take a larger presence in the city to halt looting and improve the delivery of aid.

City workers handed out packages of rice, beans, crackers and cooking oil huge queues of people.

At least two cargo planes brought in emergency supplies at the airport, closed to commercial flights.

Cancun is a booming tourism city with some of Mexico’s highest wages. But most of the once sparsely populated region’s 700,000 residents have come from elsewhere and have no nearby relatives to rely on if there is a disaster. Drug gangs also have moved in.

Initial thefts were mainly people taking bottles of water and cans of tuna from convenience stores after huddling in shelters or flooded homes for two days. But looting escalated quickly, with a tougher crowd grabbing more lucrative goods.

Mr Fox said it would take two months to restore “80 to 90% of the touristic capacity of Cancun.”