 Mortality was high, with approximately 50% of the population of some Yucatec Maya settlements being wiped out.Sixteen Franciscan friars are reported to have died in Mérida, probably the majority of the based there at the time, and who had probably numbered not much more than twenty before the outbreak.Those areas of the peninsula that experience damper conditions, particularly those possessing swamplands, became rapidly depopulated after the conquest with the introduction of malaria and other waterborne parasites.