HUAUCHINANGO: Standing near the lifeless body of her sister, Rosalia Ortega was grateful to have found her in the river of mud that suddenly swept away her house as torrential rains pounded her Mexican mountain town.

At least 47 people have died since Thursday as floods have wreaked a trail of destruction in the hardest-hit states of Hidalgo, Puebla, Queretaro and Veracruz.

“We’re sad, but at least we’re going to give her a Christian burial,” Ortega, 76, told AFP in the town of Huauchinango, in Puebla, a state east of Mexico City that according to official reports saw nine deaths and substantial damage.

The disaster zone is the Sierra Madre Oriental, a mountain range that runs parallel to Mexico’s east coast and is dotted with villages where telecommunications and other services have yet to be restored.

On Thursday, well after dark, a rain-swollen mountain river overflowed its banks in Huauchinango and within minutes robbed local residents of their homes and, in some cases, their loved ones.

That’s what happened to Maria Salas, a 49-year-old cook sheltering from the rain with an umbrella, watching two soldiers guarding the entrance to her neighbourhood.

Salas lost five relatives when their house collapsed, and her own home was destroyed by a landslide.

“I can’t get my belongings, I can’t sleep there,” she said. “I have nothing.”

The grieving families are struggling to pay for funerals and, if anything is left over, to recover something from lost or damaged homes.

Huauchinango, with 100,000 residents, is one of the largest communities in the disaster zone and one of a very few that could be accessed Saturday.

Rivers of mud

The floodwaters swept away everything in their path, forming heavy rivers of mud that even rendered intact homes unusable.

“It was knee-deep,” says Petra Rodriguez, a 40-year-old domestic worker whose house was surrounded by water on both sides.

She, her husband and two sons managed to escape, holding hands so that if the water took one of them, “it would take us all,” she said.

In another part of town, teacher Karina Galicia, 49, showed AFP her mud-damaged, musty house. She and her family were able to run out; had they not, “we would have been buried,” she said.

In less damaged houses, neighbours worked to remove water with plastic bottles, brooms and shovels.

Adriana Vazquez, 48, climbed a rough path strewn with stones and mud to see if anything was left of a relative’s house.

What she found was a jumble of wood and tin houses levelled by a landslide. Soldiers were using a backhoe to remove a pile of debris from the street.

Her relative “answered the telephone,” Vasquez said, but she could hardly hear anything and hoped that was due to a poor connection.

About 100 small communities are uncontactable due to road closures and power outages that have complicated telephone services and travel.

Mexico has been hit by particularly heavy rains throughout 2025, with a rainfall record set in the capital, Mexico City.

Meteorologist Isidro Cano told AFP that the intense rainfall since Thursday was caused by a seasonal shift and cloud formation as warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico rises to the mountaintops.

Jelly Roll won three Dove Awards trophies at the Christian music awards, including Song of the Year for his Brandon Lake collaboration, Hard Fought Hallelujah.

The country artist has been vocal about his Christian faith in the past few years, and believes it saved him from self-destruction.

“The world is hearing about Jesus like they haven’t in decades right now,” he told the crowd during his acceptance speech.

He continued, “There is a revival happening in the United States of America, where you can’t go on a corner and not hear about Jesus right now.”

“I thank God that I could see the forest for the trees,” the Save Me hitmaker added.

Christian singer Forrest Frank won the Dove Awards’ highest honour, Artist of the Year, on the night, but wasn’t present at the ceremony.

Frank previously uploaded a video on his social media where he declared that he won’t be attending any award ceremonies including the Christian music awards because he does not want industry recognition for music that expresses his faith.

“I love that you said, ‘I don’t want to get a trophy for something that’s from Jesus for Jesus’, which is awesome,” Jelly noted on social media at that time, “But also make millions of dollars doing that same thing that is from Jesus for Jesus.”

“Maybe I’m missing something here lol,” Jelly Roll concluded.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have shocked the media with their unusual argument on camera.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who attended the Project Healthy Minds gala in New York earlier this week, were seen in a swift exchange of words on the red carpet.

Meghan, who was given ‘Humanitarians of the Year’ award with Prince Harry, was spotted telling the husband to remove his hand from her back.

This comes moments before Meghan told the audience: “Our children, Archie and Lili, are just six and four years old. Luckily still too young for social media, but we know that day is coming.”

“Like so many parents, we think constantly about how to embrace technology’s benefits, while safeguarding against its dangers. That hopeful intention of separation is rapidly becoming impossible.”

Harry also added: “This is a pivotal moment in our collective mission to protect children and support families in a digital age.”