MEXICO’S CIVIL DEFENCE authorities have raised the death toll from the Category 5 Hurricane Otis to 39.

The storm’s human toll – which was initially 27 dead – is becoming a point of contention as local media reported the recovery of more bodies.

Hundreds of families have been awaiting word on their loved ones after the storm struck the country’s southern Pacific coast early on Wednesday.

Mexico’s security secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said in a recorded video message with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador posted to the platform X that the cause of death for the 39 was “suffocation by submersion”.

But she added that investigations continue and that the victims had not yet been identified.

Rodriguez said the number of missing has increased to 10.

In Acapulco yesterday, government workers and volunteers cleared streets, petrol station queues wrapped around the block for what gas was to be had, and some lucky families found food essentials as a more organised relief operation took shape four days after Hurricane Otis.

The aid has been slow to arrive.

The Category 5 storm’s destruction cut off the city of nearly one million people for the first day and it intensified so quickly on Tuesday that little to nothing had been staged in advance.

Authorities had the difficult task of searching for the dead and missing. Many had remained incredulous that the government’s initial death toll of 27 and four missing had not risen in the past two days.

One military official said authorities in his area had found at least six bodies while his unit had found one.

It had been difficult to find bodies because they were often covered in trees and other debris, he said. He was certain there were more deaths than the 27 reported, but said that even security forces had not been provided an updated figure.