Mexico explains decision to flood poor, Indigenous areas Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says he had to face a tough decision on whether to allow a big city to be flooded, or to direct excess water to poorer, more sparsely populated Indigenous areasMEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday he had to face a tough decision on whether to allow a big city to be flooded, or to direct excess water to poorer, more sparsely populated Indigenous areas. The president, whose slogan has always been “the poor come first,” chose the latter. “It hurts me a lot,” López Obrador said, while noting “there would have been a lot more people affected" had the city of Villahermosa been flooded. He promised to drag river channels and reduce the focus on hydroelectric power production at a dam whose outflow contributed to the problem. López Obrador defended his decision to open strategic floodgates, saying it avoided a major flood in Villahermosa, the capital of the Gulf coast state of Tabasco and home to over 350,000 people.

Source: ABC News November 16, 2020 16:08 UTC