Mexico: flooding makes 500,000 homeless

Flooding caused by heavy rains has left one person dead and 500,000 homeless in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco.

Tens of thousands of people remain trapped on rooftops in what are being described as the worst floods the swampy state has seen in more than 50 years.

President Felipe Calderon said it is one of the worst natural disasters in Mexico's history.

Television pictures have shown rescue workers hauling people out of surging, brown waters that rose as high as the roofs of houses.

Tabasco Governor Andres Granier said more than a million people were "in the water," and scores of people called local radio stations pleading to be rescued.

Floodwaters turned many towns and swaths of the state capital, Villahermosa, into dirty lakes.

Boat owners and emergency workers steered boats up and down streets, fishing thousands from the waters and dropping them off in improvised shelters.

Francisca Almeida, who was gripping a rope tied around a lamp-post to keep from being swept away, said: "God help us - nothing like this has ever happened to us. I had to jump from a roof so they would be able to get to me."

Officials have said Tabasco lost all of its banana and other crops, and that four-fifths of the state is under water.

The floods were triggered by storms that have wreaked havoc in the oil industry along Mexico's Gulf coast.

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