Mexico looks for landslide victims, missing police chopper ACAPULCO, Mexico Mexican soldiers dug through tons of mud and dirt Friday in their continuing search for landslide victims, as authorities looked for a federal police helicopter that went missing while carrying out relief operations on the flood-stricken Pacific coast. The helicopter with three crew members on board was returning from the remote mountain village of La Pintada, where the mudslide occurred, when it went missing Thursday, said federal security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez. "We still don't know anything," Sanchez said. (The helicopter) was in La Pintada ... and then we didn't hear anything more from it. Search efforts continued in the town north of Acapulco, where 68 people were reported missing following Monday's slide. Two bodies have been recovered, but it was unclear if they were among those on the list of missing. Federal police have been helping move emergency supplies and aid victims of massive flooding caused by Tropical Storm Manuel, which washed out bridges and collapsed highways throughout the area, cutting Acapulco off by land and stranding thousands of tourists. The country's Transportation Department said Friday that a patchwork connection of roads leading to Mexico City had been partially reopened around midday Friday. Part of the main toll highway, however, remain blocked by collapsed tunnels and mudslides, so drivers were being shunted to a smaller non-toll highway that is in better shape on some stretches. Yet so badly damaged was that route that traffic was allowed through only in small groups escorted by federal police, and in only one direction: outward bound from Acapulco. Thousands of cars, trucks and buses lined up at the edge of Acapulco, waiting to get out of the flood- and shortage-stricken city. We're a little calmer now. We've spent six days stranded, waiting to get out," said Armando Herrera, a tourist from Mexico state, outside of Mexico City, as he waited in his car to be allowed on to the newly reopened road. Survivors of the La Pintada landslide staying at a shelter in Acapulco recounted how a tidal wave of dirt, rocks and trees exploded off the hill, sweeping through the center of town, burying families in their homes and sweeping wooden houses into the bed of the swollen river that winds past the village on its way to the Pacific. In this photo released by Mexico's Secretary of the Interior, structures lay in ruins at the site of a landslide in the village of La Pintada, Mexico, Thursday, Sept. / AP Photo/Mexico's Secretary of the Interior Half the homes in town were smothered and buried," said Marta Alvarez, a 22-year-old homemaker who was cooking with her 2-year-old son, two brothers and parents when the landslide erupted. La Pintada was the scene of the single greatest tragedy in the twin paths of destruction wreaked by Manuel and Hurricane Ingrid, which simultaneously pounded both of Mexico's coasts over the weekend, spawning huge floods and landslides across hundreds of miles of coastal and inland areas. Acapulco faces floods, crocodile in street Three people were reported dead in Sinaloa: a fisherman swept from his boat, a small boy who fell into a ditch and a young man whose vehicle was swept away by flood waters that reached waist-deep in some places in Culiacan, the Sinaloa state capital. Authorities reported three thousand people had been forced to take refuge at storm shelters throughout the state. The death toll from the weekend storms, not including the dead in Sinaloa, stood at 97. But it was certain to rise because the figure also doesn't include the missing in La Pintada. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, visiting Mexico City for a Friday meeting with Pena Nieto, offered U.S. help in flood recovery and relief efforts. Federal officials set up donation centers for storm aid Thursday, but they faced stiff questioning about why, instead of warning people more energetically about the oncoming storms, they focused on Independence Day celebrations and a military parade that kept dozens of aircraft and emergency vehicles in Mexico City.