The unstable hillsides of rain-soaked southern Mexico have claimed at least 16 more victims and authorities are scrambling to deal with the peril after a siege of unusually wet weather.
A landslide on Wednesday surged into a community in Chiapas state, killing 16 people and injuring 13, while another avalanche left three people missing in a nearby town, federal officials said.
The deaths came a day after a huge mudslide roared down a hill in Oaxaca state and crashed into Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec, touching off a scare that hundreds of people might have been lost. Officials later lowered the likely death toll to 11 there, and searchers found the first four bodies on Wednesday.
Photo: EPA
“There are fears of more landslides in Chiapas, Oaxaca and the mountainous zone in this strip of territory in the country’s southeast, since the ground is softened, is saturated,” Laura Gurza, chief of the federal Civil Protection emergency response agency, said on Tuesday.
Speaking with the Televisa network, she said 16 people were known dead in the Chiapas municipality of Amatan. She also reported that three similar slide in the town of Angel Albino Corzo near Amatan.
In Oaxaca state, searchers recovered the bodies of two teenage sisters as they hunted for the 11 people listed as missing in Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec.
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