'Everything is shut down': Manitobans in Puerto Vallarta take shelter to avoid violence

Some Manitobans have been caught in the violent turmoil that's shaken up the Mexican city of Puerto Vallarta following a special operation that took down the leader of a powerful drug cartel.

Global Affairs Canada has issued a travel advisory for the coastal city west of Mexico City and other parts of the Mexican state of Jalisco, saying it is under a shelter-in-place order.

The agency says there are just under 19,000 Canadians in Mexico at the moment, including nearly 5,000 in Jalisco.

Winnipegger Ed Johner said he was out for a walk Sunday morning when he noticed smoke from all around the bay in the coastal city. He said he thought it was a wildfire at first.

"As I walked downtown along the malecon, I saw a couple of cars burning on a side street," he told CBC News.

"I stopped and talked to someone on the malecon and they had said that they had heard that there was cartel issues.

"I'm starting to get quite concerned," Johner said. "We heard down below us what actually sounded like yelling and gunfire, and then a bunch of guys taking off on motorcycles, so I don't know what that was all about, but it's not good."

The mass violence flared as federal authorities announced it had launched a special forces operation to capture Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Oseguera Cervantes was wounded in a clash with federal authorities and died from his injuries while enroute to Mexico City, the Secretariat of National Defence said in a statement.

Jalisco's governor said on social media Sunday afternoon all public transport will remain suspended until the situation is under control, saying some individuals had burned vehicles and set up road blocks to impede the authorities.

Tegan Monforton, who lives in Steinbach, said the sky was so dark that she thought a storm was rolling in on Sunday morning. 

She said she could see black smoke billowing up from fires below the balcony of her Airbnb in downtown Puerto Vallarta, estimating about 20 fires from her vantage point alone.

The inside of her Airbnb, where she has been staying with her 13-year-old daughter, was smoky due to the open-walled layout. She said they're lockdown there and have been running low on food.

"It was absolute chaos," Monforton said of the violence, adding several fires were set along the coastline after motorcycles roared through the streets. "There was fire after fire."