Waves batter El Salvador's coast

Storms far out in the Pacific Ocean resulted in damaging waves reaching El Salvador's coast today. According to the AP:

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - Unusually high Pacific waves battered beaches from El Salvador to Mexico and carried people out to sea, prompting authorities in some places to order swimmers out of the water Tuesday.

At least two people were killed.

Waves topping three metres swept away a dozen swimmers near La Libertad on Monday, 10 of whom were plucked from the water by boats and a helicopter, Green Cross emergency worker Jose Larin said. A 35-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy were killed.

El Salvador's government advised people "to avoid swimming at our beaches due to the risk," Interior Minister Miguel Bolanos told a news conference Tuesday.

Hundreds of kilometres to the north in Mexico, 16 people were rescued after being carried away by high surf in the resorts Acapulco and Mazatlan. Lifeguards in Mazatlan ordered swimmers out of the water, local media reported.

The large waves may be the result of swells generated last week by a powerful storm thousands of kilometres away off the western coast of South America, said U.S. National Weather Service meteorologist Dennis Feltgen.

El Diario de Hoy has a photo gallery of the wave activity here. In June 2006, equally tall waves also crashed into the same section of El Salvador's coast.