Flooding of the Rio Grande river has caused mass evacuation of homes along the Texas-Mexico border and has lead to the death of several Mexican officials attempting to survey the area.
Mayor Jose Manuel Maldonado of Piedras Niegras, Mexico was inspecting the extent of the flood in a small airplane near Eagle Pass, Texas when the plane crashed. Also on board were Public Works director Horacio Del Bosque, a municipal civil defense director, a government photographer, and the pilot and co-pilot, among others. There were no survivors.
The cause of the crash is suspected to be mechanical failure, and any attack by gang members was ruled out.
The floods are reported to be the result of Hurricane Alex, which is currently forming in the Gulf of Mexico and causing torrential rains throughout the area there.
Thousands of homes have been damaged along the border and more are threatened as heavy rain is expected to continue. At least 12 people were reported dead in Nuevo Leon, Mexico and 130,000 were without sanitary drinking water.
The AP called this situation an "unusual state of affairs in a semiarid region where Mexican and U.S. officials often squabble over rights to scarce water."
Two major border crossings between Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico were closed as water behind the Rio Grande's Amistad Dam reached the highest level in 26 years.
As if matters weren't already bad enough, a new storm is reported by the U.S. National Weather Service to be on its way through the region within the next 24 to 48 hours.
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