Guatemala mudslides kill at least 38 people
Published: Sep 6, 2010 00:52 Updated: Sep 6, 2010 00:52
NAHUALA: Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused mudslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — most of them in separate disasters along the same highway.
In the village of Nahuala, rescue crews on Sunday searched through mud and rocks for bodies after two landslides in the same spot killed at least 20 people along a highway leading northwest of the capital toward Mexico.
A slide Saturday afternoon had trapped vehicles at kilometer 171 of the Inter-American highway, and some of the people who came to rescue them were themselves caught by a second slide, officials reported. "Under the earth there is a bus that carried we don't know how many people, and there are those who tried to help the victims of the first slide," regional fire department Maj. Otto Mazariegos said.
Rescue workers have recovered 20 bodies from that site, said fire department spokesman Jose Rodriguez. He said at least 60 people are missing.
A few hours earlier, a landslide on kilometer marker 81 of the same highway partially buried a bus, killing 12 people.
That led President Alvaro Colom to declare a national emergency. He said four children and two adults were buried in other slides elsewhere.
"It is a tragic day. Today alone 18 people have died, 12 buried by a hill when the traveled in a bus," Colom told a news conference.
The president told officials to close the highway for fear of more slides.
"There are several hillsides that are loose and could fall. So we ask the population to not go out, to avoid moving along the highways," he said — not long before new slides took more lives.
Heavy rains from Tropical Depression 11-E have pelted Guatemala for days, unleashing deadly mudslides in several areas, cutting highways and forcing officials to evacuate thousands of people.
