Print

Mail

wiki links

Flooding, landslides kill scores

Rescuers aid a woman whose house had been flooded in San Salvador's Modelo neighborhood on Wednesday after heavy rains hit El Salvador. PHOTO: AFP

Raging brown floodwater and mud covered large swaths of Central America and southern Mexico yesterday after days of torrential rain and mudslides killed at least 162 across the region.

Downpours have battered the region since the weekend, and it was still raining in most areas, causing rivers to overflow and carry off homes and people and huge chunks of land to give way, burying everything in their path.

Rescue workers battled to get to remote villages, where hillsides have collapsed under the downpour, and thousands of evacuees from urban shantytowns hunkered down in emergency shelters as rain continued to pound the region.

The hardest hit area was believed to be a town popular with tourists close to Lake Atitlan, a breathtaking freshwater reserve surrounded by volcanos and Mayan communities, 100km west of the capital, Guatemala City.

There, emergency officials pulled 15 bodies from the mud and said the death toll would likely rise as authorities were able to step-up search efforts hindered by continued rains.

Forecasters at the US Hurricane Center said the rain was likely to continue for the next few days because of regional weather patterns.

The death toll soared on Wednesday as rivers swollen by rain from Hurricane Stan burst their banks in southern Mexico, and emergency teams found dozens of bodies buried under banks of mud in remote towns in Guatemala and El Salvador.

As troops tried to reach flooded areas with drinking water, food and medical kits, authorities estimated several thousand homes were destroyed across the region.

"I was like a worm sliding around in the mud," said Alexander Flores, whose home on the edge of El Salvador's capital San Salvador was buried under 2m of dirt and rocks.

"I just heard two shouts from my mother, saying, `Alex, Alex,' maybe for me to help her or her trying to save me," he said. His mother, four children and a newborn baby, all died.

In the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, TV pictures showed mud-spattered families praying and fleeing for their lives as a torrent of raging muddy water tore by, carrying chairs and refrigerators away as houses collapsed into it.

An army helicopter hoisted up babies, young children and elderly people to safety. Below, their families wept.

Guatemala reported 79 dead, but the government said the figure could rise. Unconfirmed reports said hundreds may have been killed in an isolated region in the west of the country.

Entire families were missing after a sea of mud, trees and rocks descended on the hill town of Tecpan, west of the capital Guatemala City, destroying more than 30 flimsy homes.

"A lot of people couldn't get out," said local resident Samuel Cif.

Two dead children were found and villagers were too scared of more landslides to dig for other victims.
This story has been viewed 2230 times.