Hurricane John flooding leaves 17 dead, villages devastated in Mexico

Residents walk past a house damaged by Hurricane John (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Along Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, floodwaters receded on Monday, leaving behind devastated towns and 17 dead, after John struck the coast once as a hurricane and again as a tropical storm last week.

Desperate residents in the town of Coyuca de Benitez, about 35 miles west of the resort city of Acapulco, organised volunteers to go to outlying areas to burn the bloated bodies of farm animals that drowned.