meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
From Our Own Correspondent

Acapulco in the aftermath of Hurricane Otis

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kate Adie presents stories from Mexico, Israel, Pakistan, Georgia and Romania. On October 24, high winds started howling around the Mexican beach city of Acapulco. In barely 12 hours, unseasonably warm seawater off the coast had turned a common tropical storm into Category 5 Hurricane Otis. The ferocity of the storm was unexpected, and left locals and tourists with little time to prepare before 200-mile-per-hour winds hit - some of the strongest ever recorded on earth. James Fredrick visited Acapulco in the days after the storm. Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, tensions have been rising in Israel’s mixed cities: places which, while majority Jewish, have a sizeable Arab population. One in five people in Israel’s population are Palestinian citizens of Israel – sometimes known as Israeli Arabs – making them the largest minority in the country. Emily Wither meets a grassroots peace group working to bring people from both communities together. In October, Pakistan’s government announced that any foreign national who does not have the paperwork to stay in the country would be deported from 1st November. The policy will mostly affect an estimated 1.7 million Afghan nationals in the country. In the last two months around 200,000 Afghan nationals are believed to have already left Pakistan ahead of the deadline, streaming over the Afghan border. Caroline Davies travelled to the border region to meet them. Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a valley region not far from the border with Russia, has a troubled history. In the early 2000s the region became a base for Chechen separatists in their war with Russia, and in the decades since Pankisi has become synonymous in media coverage with Islamist extremism. In recent years, a group of Chechen women entrepreneurs have taken it upon themselves to change the negative stereotype of their community, as Sally Howard found. Romania’s state healthcare service is one of the most poorly funded in the European Union. In recent years it has been the subject of a series of negative news stories, from a string of deadly hospital fires, to investigations into high-level corruption. Stephen McGrath has reported on Romania’s medical system many times, but recently he found himself at the heart of it - as a patient. Producer: Viv Jones Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:05.0

Today, as tensions rise in Israel's mixed cities, we meet a community group bringing

0:11.6

Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel together.

0:16.3

After Pakistan's government ordered them to leave, hundreds of thousands of Afghan migrants

0:21.6

and refugees have begun crossing the border back into Afghanistan,

0:27.0

taking with them everything they own.

0:29.8

In Georgia, a community of Chechen women, is tackling Islamist stereotypes and patriarchal norms

0:36.5

by setting up their own businesses.

0:39.8

And after years of reporting on Romania's struggling hospitals,

0:44.1

our correspondent pays a visit to one, this time as a patient.

0:48.8

But first, late in the night on the 24th of October, terrifying winds started howling around the Mexican

0:56.4

Beach City of Acapulco. In barely 12 hours, unseasonably warm sea water off the coast had turned a common tropical storm into

1:07.2

category 5 hurricane Otis.

1:10.3

At least 48 people were killed in the storm, which left locals and tourists with little time to prepare

1:16.6

before 200 mile per hour winds hit, some of the strongest ever recorded on earth.

1:23.2

James Frederick visited Acapulco in the days after the storm.

1:28.2

When I was 13, our family went to Acapulco for spring break.

1:31.8

It wasn't as cool as Cancun and was no longer the glamorous 1970s getaway for Hollywood

1:36.6

royalty or the 1960s dream destination back when Elvis Presley saying that he couldn't

1:42.2

wait to meet sweet

1:43.3

Signorita's in Acapulco Bay. But it was still charming and safe for a family of

1:48.4

American tourists. But when I returned to work in Mexico as a journalist more than 10 years later,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.