SANAA, 31 December 2005 — The death toll from a landslide that hit a small village west of the Yemeni capital Sanaa increased to 52 yesterday as the search continued for the missing.
Sixteen more bodies were recovered from under the wreckage of destroyed houses late Thursday and early yesterday, according to the Yemeni Red Crescent Association (YRCA).
A rocky hill overlooking Dhafir village, 60 km from Sanaa, collapsed onto the village, destroying about 50 houses on Wednesday. Fifteen houses were crushed by giant rocks that slid off the mountain when the hillside collapsed and an avalanche of tons of rocks hurtled onto the village.
Five people were pulled out alive, the YRCA said, quoted by the Saba news agency. It said the hopes of finding more survivors were fading three days after the catastrophe.
Search and rescue operations were being hampered by a lack of tools to break the huge rocks lying on crushed houses, police officials at the scene said. “It needs at least 10 days to lift the rocks and search under the buried buildings,” one official said.
Around 700 residents who escaped the landslide were evacuated to nearby villages after geologists warned of the possibility of further rock falls.
