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Mexico States Run out of Death Certificates

A grave digger walks in the COVID-19 section of the cemetery of San Lorenzo Tezonco Iztapalapa on the outskirts of Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. (AP)
A grave digger walks in the COVID-19 section of the cemetery of San Lorenzo Tezonco Iztapalapa on the outskirts of Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. (AP)
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Mexico States Run out of Death Certificates

A grave digger walks in the COVID-19 section of the cemetery of San Lorenzo Tezonco Iztapalapa on the outskirts of Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. (AP)
A grave digger walks in the COVID-19 section of the cemetery of San Lorenzo Tezonco Iztapalapa on the outskirts of Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. (AP)

The coronavirus pandemic has hit Mexico so hard that the governments of several states ran out of death certificates.

Officials said Friday the federal forms started running out about 15 to 20 days ago in at least three states — Baja California, the State of Mexico and Mexico City.

Authorities say a million new forms have been printed and are being distributed.

The certificates are printed with special characteristics because falsification has been a problem in the past.

Mexico has suffered the fourth-highest level of COVID-19 deaths in the world.

On Friday, the number of confirmed cases rose by 6,196 to 623,090, while deaths rose by 522 to 66,851. Cases in Mexico now appear to have plateaued and are no longer decreasing.

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Floods in Eastern DR Congo Kill More Than 100

People in Kinshasa’s Pompage district after the Congo River overflowed. (AFP/Getty Images file)
People in Kinshasa’s Pompage district after the Congo River overflowed. (AFP/Getty Images file)
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Floods in Eastern DR Congo Kill More Than 100

People in Kinshasa’s Pompage district after the Congo River overflowed. (AFP/Getty Images file)
People in Kinshasa’s Pompage district after the Congo River overflowed. (AFP/Getty Images file)

Raging floods rushing through a village during the night killed more than 100 people, many of them children as they slept, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, local officials told AFP on Saturday.

The floods were sparked by torrential rains and ripped through the Kasaba village in the Sud Kivu province during the night of Thursday-Friday, Bernard Akili, a regional official, told AFP.

Torrential rains caused the Kasaba river to burst its banks overnight, with the rushing waters "carrying everything in their path, large stones, large trees and mud, before razing the houses on the edge of the lake," he said.

"The victims who died are mainly children and elderly," he said, adding that 28 people were injured and some 150 homes were destroyed.

Sammy Kalonji, the regional administrator, said the torrent killed at least 104 people and caused "enormous material damage."

Another local resident told AFP that some 119 bodies had been found by Saturday.

The village, which sits on the Tanganyika lake and is only accessible by the lake, does not have internet service, a local humanitarian worker told AFP.

Such natural disasters are frequent in the DRC, particularly on the shores of the great lakes in the east of the country, with the surrounding hills weakened by deforestation.

In 2023, floods killed 400 people in several communities located on the shores of Lake Kivu, in South Kivu province.