Tijuana – Heavy rain began to fall Wednesday morning across the region as emergency crews cut off power and other public services to a south-side area where seven houses collapsed the day before.

Around noon the city government opened two shelters for people who may be forced from their homes.

So far the rain had caused only scattered power outages in the central and southern areas of the city due to transformers that were damaged.

Crews from the city’s emergency agency, Protección Civil, cut off

public services to parts of the neighborhoods of Anexa Ramírez and Cumbres Rubí where seven houses collapsed Tuesday afternoon as rain-saturated ground gave way.

Residents had fled those houses earlier and no casualties were reported.

On Wednesday morning, the rain destabilized a barrier built with tires in the southern area of colonia Planetario, leading authorities to evacuate a family

in a nearby house. They were sent to one of the two shelters the city opened.

Over the years there have been several landslides in those neighborhoods, where houses were built haphazardly on canyon sides. Around 200 houses have collapsed there since 1994, said Antonio Alfaro, deputy director of the emergency agency.

The agency has identified around 3,000 families who live in that area and similar ones where the ground has a high risk of shifting, particularly in heavy rains.

No city government has yet been able to resolve the chronic problems that create the precarious situation, among them a continuous flow to Tijuana of migrants from elsewhere in Mexico, a lack of affordable housing, and individuals who ignore laws and invade land not suitable for housing.

Omar.millan@sandiegored.com