Carlotta Weakens after Hitting Mexico as Hurricane

Posted June 16th, 2012 at 2:10 pm (UTC-5)
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Carlotta weakened from a hurricane to a tropical depression Saturday over southern Mexico after pummeling the country's Pacific coast with strong winds and heavy rains and causing a mudslide that killed two children.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center first downgraded Carlotta to a tropical storm Saturday before downgrading it again to a tropical depression.

The center says the Mexican government has discontinued all warnings and watches related to the storm.

Carlotta hit the southern Mexican coast Friday as a hurricane, making landfall in the state of Oaxaca. Officials in Oaxaca's town of Pluma Hidalgo say two young girls died there when a mudslide collapsed their home. The girls were sisters, ages 13 and 7. Their mother was seriously injured in the collapse.

The Hurricane Center says it expects Carlotta or its remnants will meander over southern Mexico for the next day or two.

The storm is not expected to affect the G20 summit which begins Monday in Mexico. Leaders of the Group of 20 top economies are meeting in the Pacific coast resort of Los Cabos at the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, far from the storm's path.