At least two and as many as five people have died after Hurricane Simon and the remnants of Rachel, a former tropical storm, brought torrential rain and flooding to communities along Mexico's Pacific coast. The differing tolls reflect preliminary and evolving figures, and officials and experts warn the numbers could rise.

In the southern state of Guerrero, Governor Evelyn Salgado said a 71-year-old man died when a retaining wall collapsed during Simon in Chilpancingo, the state capital. Local media identified him as Albino Moreno Jimenez, saying he was feeding his animals when the wall fell. Salgado said the storm also damaged homes and infrastructure in coastal towns, including the major seaport of Acapulco.

Further north, in Baja California, the toll from Rachel is less clear. One account describes a young girl's death, while the state prosecutor's office reported that four members of one family, including two children, were found dead on the outskirts of Ensenada, a Pacific coast city. Estimates of those still missing range from five to 11, including people in Ensenada and in the fishing town of San Felipe on the Gulf of California. Security forces used helicopters to rescue 32 people, and Governor Marina del Pilar said more than 50 people were in temporary shelters. Rachel, which peaked as a Category 3 hurricane in early October, reached Baja California as a post-tropical cyclone, and its remnants moved north through southern California.

Simon, meanwhile, has not made landfall. It weakened from a Category 4 storm to a Category 2 on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, with maximum sustained winds of about 155km/h, according to the US National Hurricane Center. It was drifting west off Jalisco state, away from the coast, though forecasters said it could still approach land later in the week. Hurricane warnings remain in effect for parts of western Mexico. Waves of up to five metres are expected in some coastal areas, and flooding and landslides have already hit communities near rivers and streams in Michoacan and Colima. A cliff diver also died in Mazatlan, in Sinaloa state, in heavy surf linked to Simon, though officials have not confirmed a direct link.

The storms are part of a record-breaking season in the northeastern and central Pacific, where 21 named storms have formed. Simon pushed the region's accumulated cyclone energy, a measure of storms' combined strength and duration, past the previous high set in 2018. The El Nino climate pattern, which warms parts of the Pacific, is helping fuel the activity, and scientists say human-caused global heating is making El Ninos more intense. Hawaii has also been hit hard this season, with deadly flooding and power outages from several hurricanes.

For Mexico, the immediate concern is that heavy rain from Simon could still cause life-threatening floods and mudslides in the west-central part of the country, even as the storm moves away from the coast.