Ireland is ready to pledge more money to victims of the Pakistan earthquake disaster, a Government minister said today.

Guatemalan authorities abandoned efforts today to recover bodies from a deadly landslide that killed hundreds of people, and blocked villagers’ access to the site to prevent an outbreak of disease.

THE discovery of more than 130 bodies pushed the number of dead and missing in mudslides linked to Hurricane Stan to more than 1,000, as Guatemala’s Indian communities struggled yesterday with the fact they must abandon the dead, give up traditional burial rites and declare many communities graveyards.

The discovery of more than 130 bodies pushed the number of dead and missing in mudslides linked to Hurricane Stan to more than 1,000, as Guatemala’s Indian communities struggled today with the fact they must abandon the dead, give up traditional burial rites and declare many communities graveyards.

The first rescue teams reaching Guatemala’s isolated communities reported 133 more confirmed fatalities, raising the death toll in mudslides linked to Hurricane Stan to 652 with 384 missing.

A GUATEMALAN village buried under tons of dirt and debris may be declared a Mayan mass grave as rescuers give up digging for the remains of up to 1,400 people killed in a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Stan.

A week of mudslides and flooding have left more than 500 people dead and another 337 missing across Guatemala, federal emergency officials said today, dramatically raising the previous death toll.

There was a violent shudder and a roar, and then the side of a volcano gave way, burying two villages under a rush of mud and flood waters.

Rescue workers today searched for victims of a mudslide near a volcano-ringed lake popular with tourists in Guatemala, as the death toll from flooding sparked by heavy rains climbed to 79 across the country and 65 in neighbouring El Salvador.

Hurricane Stan knocked down trees, ripped roofs off homes and washed out bridges in south-eastern Mexico – but the storms it helped spawn proved far more destructive, killing more than 65 people in Central America.