The hurricane, which was at a devastating Category 5 when it made landfall in the country's Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday, swept across the Mexican Gulf and hit the mainland on Wednesday.
Rescue services said two people died in the central state of Hidalgo when torrential rains brought their roof down, one man drowned in an overflowing river in Veracruz on the west coast, and another was electrocuted by a power line in the province. One man was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm in Michoacan on the west coast, and five died in a mudslide in Puebla, eastern Mexico.
Dean is the first Atlantic hurricane to hit land at Category 5, the highest possible, since Hurricane Andrew, which claimed 65 lives in 1992. The storm has so far killed at least 23 people in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Mexico.
After passing over Mexico's Yucatan, the hurricane weakened to Category 1, but regained strength over the Gulf, to hit the Mexican mainland at Category 2.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon, visiting the two worst-hit provinces, Veracruz and Hidalgo, warned that the consequences of the storm's devastation would continue after the hurricane has subsided.
In Hidalgo, two rivers and a reservoir have overflowed, and dozens of homes have been damaged, while in Veracruz entire towns have been flooded.
In Yucatan, where the storm was at its most powerful with wind gusts of up to 200 mph, thousands of trees were brought down, Mayan villages damaged, and tourist resorts evacuated. However, the region miraculously emerged with no human fatalities.
Oil production in the country has been brought to a virtual standstill, and oil platforms in the Bay of Campeche, numbering around 100, have been evacuated.
