HURRICANE'S WRATH BARES TALE OF 2 CITIES.

Byline: Laurence Iliff and Alfredo Corchado / The Dallas Morning News

Thousands of tourists began streaming out of Acapulco on Friday while rescue workers continued the tedious and grim task of recovering the mud-covered bodies of those killed when Hurricane Pauline slammed the Pacific Coast, leaving at least 150 dead in its wake.

State and federal officials said the dead were mostly poor people living near tourist meccas in Oaxaca and Guerrero, making the storm the worst to strike Mexico since 1988 when Hurricane Gilbert rocked the coast of Yucatan, killing 223 people.

In Acapulco on Friday, as military troops and rescue workers recovered the bodies of the victims, a troubling and grim reality of Mexico surfaced.

Behind Acapulco's fancy hotels and glitzy night life lie the makeshift shacks built by poor peasants who, over the years, have streamed into the city seeking a morsel of the billion-dollar tourism industry.

When Hurricane Pauline unleashed its force on Acapulco just before dawn Thursday, the contrasting worlds of jet-set beach opulence and hillside squalor merged into a unique and grim sight.

The raging waters carried the clothes of the poor, their meager possessions, crumbling homes and bodies all the way down to painted hotels and manicured lawns of the rich. Pauline's pounding force raked open Acapulco's stark poverty, exposing to the world the neglect that many other Mexicans have fought against for years, observers said.

``It seems like all the destruction was in the hills and among the locals, but not among the tourists in the resort areas,'' said Vinny Conti, a New York stockbroker vacationing in Acapulco.

In a scene repeated hundreds of times, grieving relatives went to the local morgue to identify the bodies of relatives.

Among them on Friday was truck driver Mario Suastegui Lopez, 26, who identified the bodies of his 8-year-old niece and 2-year-old nephew and continued his search for his missing sister.

Suastegui and his family live in a shantytown known as Palma Sola (Lone Palm), near a canyon where people have haphazardly built homes with whatever materials were available.

``Because of our economic situation, we have to build our homes with wooden boards and adobe because it's the only thing we can afford,'' he said. ``People are poor. We do with what little we have.''

Most famous

Much of Pauline's destruction centered on Acapulco, Mexico's most famous resort with 1 million residents. City officials estimate that at least 150 were killed and an additional 300,000 residents suffered some degree of loss or damage from the hurricane's wrath. An additional 10 people were reported killed in other parts of Guerrero.

In Oaxaca, 15 people were confirmed dead, 50 missing and thousands more injured and homeless.

In addition, about 300 hotels along the Oaxaca and Guerrero coast were damaged. Some travel agents reported a cancellation rate on flights and hotels of as high as 80 percent, an indication that Mexico's warm beaches, which generate critical income for all its residents, could face a dreary season, tourism officials warned.

``We will offer immediate attention to the tourist zone of Acapulco because that's where the main sources of employment exist for those living there,'' said President Ernesto Zedillo, who cut his European trip short by one day to head to Mexico's southern coast today to assess the damage.

Tons of food, medicine, clothes and drinking water were being shipped to the southern Pacific coast as city officials in Acapulco warned residents of the threat of cholera. But many residents complained Friday that they were not getting donations on time.

``We're talking about poor people,'' said 15-year-old Martin Salgado, who stood on an intersection in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City collecting clothing, medicine, food and drinking water for Acapulco residents. ``We have to stick together because all we have is each other.''

The lives of some of Mexico's rich and famous also were disrupted.

The home of the late former Gov. Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu of Guerrero was filled with mud, and family members lamented the loss of items, including sentimentally prized photo albums.

Highlighted problems

Mexico's singing sensation Luis Miguel almost didn't make his first of 15 concert dates in Mexico City because of difficulty in leaving his Acapulco home, which has a stunning view of the bay.

Still, it was painfully obvious Friday that Pauline's terror once again highlighted problems in Mexico's teeming society of rich and poor.

The degree of income disparity in Mexico is among the worst in the world and is steadily growing more extreme. Of the nation's 93 million people, more than two-thirds live on $10 or less a day, and the richest 10 percent control about 40 percent of the country's wealth.

To make matters worse, Pauline's destruction was reserved for the nation's poorest states of Guerrero, Chiapas and Oaxaca, the areas with the most activity by leftist guerrillas who repeatedly have stated that they're fighting to build a more equal society.

Many of the roads in isolated regions in the areas where guerrillas recruit new members are rocky and unpaved, and many of the residents lack potable water and indoor plumbing - conditions that are likely to breed illnesses because of the flooding.

``It's really bad there, and we still need to get to these remote areas,'' said Joel Sanchez, a state official who plans to travel to the region this weekend.

Many of the new residents of Acapulco had left their impoverished countryside for the city, helping double Acapulco's population to 1 million in only seven years. They built homes alongside rivers in the northern part of the city, linking the poor on the mountains to the rich on the coast.

Many turned to the informal economy, picking up a few key words in English, Italian or German and hawking grilled fish on sticks, suntan lotion, cheap T-shirts and coconuts along the beaches packed by foreign and domestic tourists.

Unsurprisingly, when the rivers swelled Thursday, the waters washed away their dreams. For many, gone too are their jobs.

``It's the workers in the tourism industry who make this town, but the government does nothing for us,'' said Penelope Ojeda, 23, a housewife who lost some of her friends to the raging waters. ``They should have controlled those rivers because we're the ones who suffer.''

Tourists could not immediately flee after the storm Thursday because the airport and highways were closed.

During the disaster, the worlds of rich and poor continued to coexist, albeit sometimes not on the best of terms. While tourist agencies and the hotel association promptly sent out faxes assuring the media that life is back to normal, the silence and occasional weeping in Acapulco continued.

Some tourists who had come for the beach, sun and Acapulco's famous night life tried to make the best of it.

Vacations soured

Many poked around huge chunks of debris that formed like snowballs, as mud, trees, homes and cars slid down the mountains toward the coast and stopped wherever there was a structure big enough to keep them from heading into the sea.

``You continue your vacation,'' said Chad Satterlee, a banker from New York City. ``But basically the town is shut down.''

The vacation, he recalled, began to go sour Wednesday afternoon when the winds picked up speed.

``You could feel something out there, something that was in the air,'' said Conti, the stockbroker and a friend of Satterlee's.

Yet, so determined to enjoy their vacation, the two New Yorkers popped into a nightclub and danced the night away. Emerging at 5 a.m. Thursday, they began to realize this was no ordinary storm.

Still unfazed, the two held a ``hurricane party'' in the hotel on their return.

On Friday, the exodus of tourists heightened as the highway to Mexico City and the airport were reopened. Waiters, taxi drivers, cooks and hotel clerks expected an austere weekend as the tourists and their tips headed out of Acapulco, with no one expected to take their place.

``It's bad, bad, bad,'' waiter Hector Acevedo said. ``None of us have ever seen anything like this.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--color) Neighbors watch as rescue workers pull the body of a child from the mud in an Acapulco neighborhood.

(2) Salvador Perez saves his rooster from his flooded house in Puerto Marquez, Mexico, on Friday.

Associated Press