Mel Gibson has met Guatemala's President in the hope of filming a Mayan archaeological site in the country.

Gunmen stormed a Guatemalan prison and gunned down four jailed police officers in a mafia hit, the country’s leader said.

Rescue workers in Guatemala say they have pulled at least 40 bodies from a massive mudslide and found 20 more dead in a swollen river, raising to 246 the number of people killed from five days of pounding rains in Central America and Mexico.

A rain-sodden hillside gave way and buried houses in seven neighbourhoods of a rural Guatemalan town, killing at least 21 people, officials said today.