AP PHOTOS: Editor selections from Latin America, Caribbean

This photo gallery highlights some of the top news images, made by Associated Press photographers in Latin America and the Caribbean, published in the past week.

The region was struck by two history-making natural disasters: Hurricane Irma, the most powerful hurricane on record in the open Atlantic, and one of the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Mexico: magnitude 8.1.

Hurricane Irma devastated several Caribbean islands as a Category 5 storm. Irma bullied through much of the Caribbean — Antigua, St. Martin, St. Barts, Anguilla, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, killing 38 in the Caribbean. It turned lush tropical playgrounds into blasted-out landscapes, littered with splintered lumber, crumpled sheet metal and shattered lives.

Mexico’s monster earthquake struck the centre of the Zapotec culture, killing at least 96 people in Chiapas and neighbouring Oaxaca. It occurred within a seismic hotspot in the Pacific where one tectonic plate dives under another. These so-called subduction zones are responsible for producing some of the biggest quakes in history.

Elsewhere in Mexico, the bodies of two men and two youths who were apparently lined up against a wall and shot were found in Coyuca, just northwest of Acapulco, in Guerrero state, a region that has been hit by killings over drug trafficking, extortion, vigilante activity, illegal logging and land disputes.

Colombia hosted Latin America’s first pope, who appealed to its citizens to overcome divisions that linger after the government last year reached a peace deal with leftist rebels hoping to end the region’s longest-running armed rebellion. In Cartagena he bonked his head on his popemobile when it stopped short amid swarms of well-wishers. With only a hip-high bar to hold onto, the pontiff lost his balance and suffered a bruised, black left eye and a cut on his eyebrow that dripped blood onto his white cassock.

Guatemala’s president survived a vote in Congress to revoke his immunity. Prosecutors want to investigate him for alleged corruption. Haiti’s former presidential candidate Moise Jean-Charles escaped detention when his supporters scooped him up in the street, protecting him from police who wanted him for allegedly organizing violent protests against tax hikes. Israel’s Prime Minister toured Latin America, stopping in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico.

Chileans marked the anniversary of the military coup that killed their late President Salvador Allende.


This photo gallery was curated by photo editor Leslie Mazoch in Mexico City. Twitter: @LeslieMazoch



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