Mexican President Calderon: Floods Cripple Mexico's Oil Industry

Villahermosa, Mexico (AHN) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Friday warned it would take time to rebuild what has been devastated by the non-stop flooding plaguing the country, including the oil industry, which was crippled by the catastrophe.

"The storms have forced the closure of three of Mexico's main oil ports, preventing almost all exports and halting a fifth of the country's oil production. It has a strong economic impact" Calderon said in an interview.

The storm did not spare the Bay of Campeche, Mexico's main oil producing region and home to more than 100 oil platforms.

Overall, the region normally exports about 1.7 million barrels of crude daily. Since, most of the production remains shut down, it would mean that Mexico's output would drop by 2.6 million barrels a day.

The heavy floods that started last week also forced an oil platform into another rig in the Gulf of Mexico, where at least 21 people were reportedly killed.

Some 800,000 families were displaced as floods submerged Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco. More than 300,000 people were also trapped in their homes and rescue operations are still underway.

One hundred percent of the crops were destroyed, on top of the multi million worth of properties and belongings of people that were swept away by floods.

"It's not just the worst natural catastrophe in the state's history but, I would venture to say, one of the worst in the country's recent history," the President said.

In a BBC report, Calderon assured, "Once the critical stage was over, we are going to reconstruct Tabasco whatever it takes."