PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua — Desperate families searched through the early morning hours today for scores of missing Nicaraguans on the Caribbean coast where Hurricane Felix blew away villages, flooded rivers and killed at least 18 people.

Some 150 Miskito Indians who were adrift on the ocean clinging to buoys, canoes and slabs of wood were rescued by authorities, said Honduran federal Congresswoman Carolina Echeverria, who represents the northeastern province of Gracias a Dios, on the Nicaraguan border.

Nine of those rescued were in serious condition and were being attended by five Honduran doctors, Echeverria said.

"We believe there are many others out there floating on the sea," she said.

Far to the northwest, meanwhile, Henriette plowed into Mexico for the second time in two days, making landfall shortly before 9 p.m. near the port city of Guaymas with top sustained winds of 75 mph. Seven deaths were reported from the Pacific storm, which hit Baja California on Tuesday.

Felix came ashore Tuesday in Nicaragua as a Category 5 hurricane packing 160 mph winds and heavy rains that caused mudslides, destroyed homes, uprooted trees and devastated villages.

Wednesday night, Nicaraguan Civil Defense Department spokesman Alvaro Rivas said the confirmed death toll had doubled to 18.

Rivas also said at least 60 people were missing: more than 50 in the Matagalpa province in the north and another 10 around hard-hit city of Puerto Cabezas.

The dead included a man who drowned when his boat capsized, a woman killed when a tree fell on her house and a newborn who died shortly after birth because her mother couldn't get medical attention.