Photo Shows Devastated Shopping Mall After Hurricane Otis Pummeled Acapulco

The Plaza Galerías Diana, a shopping mall in Mexico's resort town Acapulco, appeared significantly damaged after Hurricane Otis made landfall along Mexico's Pacific Coast early Wednesday morning, according to photos shared online by national media outlets.

E-Consulta, a digital media company based in Mexico City, shared before and after photos of the mall that showed portions of the roof and one side of the mall destroyed.

TV Azteca outlets also shared photos of what the mall looked like before and after the storm, writing in translated comments on X, formerly Twitter, that the mall was left "unrecognizable."

Other photos and videos of the storm's impacts on Acapulco circulated on social media for hours after the hurricane hit. It was difficult to see the storm's impacts in some of the early videos filmed overnight, but subsequent footage shared online showed high winds whipping trees and hospital patients covered in blankets as the wind was blowing through the inside hallways.

One video shared by a Puebla-based news organization showed the extent of the destruction at an Acapulco hotel, which social media users and local media outlets identified as Hotel Princess.

Hurricane Otis crept up on the southern Pacific Coast of Mexico on Tuesday, making a rapid shift from a tropical storm to a Category 5 Hurricane. It made landfall near Acapulco at about 1:25 a.m. local time on Wednesday with maximum sustained wind speeds of about 165 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Otis may be the strongest hurricane to have ever hit this area, The Associated Press reported.

Some of the hurricane's biggest impacts were felt between Acapulco and Tecpan in Guerrero, according to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Communication in the area was "completely lost" Wednesday morning, Obrador said. Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado Pineda said in a Wednesday morning post on X that officials were working on restoring communication channels to the area.

Communication issues in the area were making it difficult to determine whether any casualties were being reported in connection with the storm, with Obrador adding there was "no data on loss of human life" as of Wednesday morning.

Otis had been downgraded to a Category 2 storm at the time Obrador spoke with reporters about the local and federal government response. The storm has since been downgraded further, with the NHC announcing it returned to its earlier tropical storm status by Wednesday afternoon.

Heavy rain was forecast to continue falling in southwestern and south-central Mexico into Thursday, bringing with it flash flooding and urban flooding risks, the NHC said in a Wednesday afternoon storm advisory.

Newsweek reached out to the Acapulco mayor's office by email on Wednesday for comment.