MEXICO CITY – Seven people died in the torrential rains that hit the Valley of Mexico, which includes Mexico City and surrounding areas, earlier this weekend, officials said.

The downpour lasted more than five hours on Friday, mainly affecting the northern section of the Valley of Mexico, damaging over 1,500 houses, flooding streets, sweeping away automobiles and wreaking havoc with traffic.

Ecatepec, a city of more than 2 million people, registered five deaths, three missing and 14 injured, as well as 150 houses and 27 automobiles damaged, municipal spokesman Miguel Angel Ramos said.

Ecatepec Mayor Eruviel Avila toured the area and is coordinating relief operations to help storm victims, Ramos said.

Four of the five people killed in Ecatepec were swept away by floodwaters that came off the Guadalupe mountains, while the fifth person died after touching a downed power line.

Hundreds of automobiles were left under water in city streets, an Ecatepec official said.

Two people in the neighboring city of Tultitlan, meanwhile, died in the heavy rains, one of them swept away by floodwaters and the other suffering a heart attack while trapped inside a stranded vehicle, municipal spokesman Manuel Gamboa said.

The stream of water running off the mountains also brought down the body of a person gunned down and dumped several days ago, Gamboa said.

Flooding hit 16 neighborhoods in Tultitlan, affecting some 1,500 houses and nearly 13,000 people, and leaving 16 automobiles buried under mud, Gamboa said.

The army has activated its plan for dealing with natural disasters and is providing assistance to those affected by the rainstorm in the Valley of Mexico, the Defense Secretariat said.

Army troops have been deployed in the hardest-hit areas in the Federal District and the cities of Ecatepec, Coacalco and Tultitlan, the secretariat said.

Soldiers are helping with evacuations, search and rescue operations, debris removal and the clean-up of houses.