Search for mudslide victim goes on

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.

Downpours have battered much of Central America and southern Mexico since the weekend, and it was still raining in most areas, causing rivers to overflow and carry off homes and people and huge chunks of land to give way, burying everything in their path.

Forecasters at the US Hurricane Centre said the rain was likely to continue for the next few days because of regional weather patterns.

In a statement released late last night, Guatemalan emergency response officials reported that 79 people had been killed and 49 others injured in 88 communities affected by floodin and landslides.

The hardest hit area was believed to be a town close to Lake Atitlan, a breathtaking freshwater reserve surrounded by volcanos and Mayan communities, 60 miles west of the capital, Guatemala City.

There, emergency officials pulled 15 bodies from the mud and said the death toll would likely rise as authorities were able to step up search efforts hindered by continued rains.

“We have 79 deaths, but we have not finished a final count,” said Benedicto Giron, a spokesman for emergency response officials.

As the rain let up a bit today, Guatemalan authorities were trying to restore access to 300 roadways blocked by fallen trees, flooding and landslides.

In El Salvador, President Tony Saca said 65 people had been killed, mostly by landslides following days of non-stop rain throughout the country. Nearly 40,650 others fled their homes for 361 shelters set up nationwide.

Among those evacuated were residents of Santa Tecla, outside the capital, San Salvador, where a strong earthquake caused a massive landslide in January 2001. Officials worry the mountain running alongside the neighbourhood might collapse again with heavy rains or another quake.

The sun was shning in some areas of El Salvador today.

The Mexican Air Force today was preparing to deliver 220 tonnes of food and 33 tonnes of emergency supplies to El Salvador, said Carlos Montemayor, of Mexico’s Social Development Department.

Mexican President Vicente Fox said Mexico acted in response to a personal plea from Saca.

“They are desperate. The situation is extremely difficult in all of Central America,” Fox told the Televisa television network this morning.

The recently reactivated Ilamatepec Volcano posed an additional threat to battered Salvadorans, with civil defence authorities widening the safety perimeter around the volcano amid indications of an imminent eruption.

Elsewhere in Central America, nine people have died in Nicaragua, four in Honduras and one in Costa Rica, most from landslides triggered by heavy rains.

In southern Mexico, the states of Chiapas, Veracruz and Oaxaca were coping with flooding left behind by Hurricane Stan, which came ashore along the Gulf Coast early on Tuesday and brought more rain to many areas already coping with flooding from other storms.

Aguilar said two more people had been killed in Chiapas, bringing the death toll to eight in the southern state, where 33 rivers overflowed their banks, roaring through cities and towns. The bustling city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, was cut off from the surrounding area by flood waters, which destroyed bridges and engulfed highways, leaving the area mostly without electricity and phone service.

Chiapas Governor Pablo Salazar warned that continued rain likely meant the worst was yet to come. President Fox told Televisa today that the government was doing everything it could to get hep to cut-off communities and that it had the money to rebuild an estimated 50 destroyed bridges in the area.

Fox visited the region yesterday, saying upon his return that “we ask families there in Chiapas to first dedicate all of their attention to protecting their lives, their health and their family members.”

In the neighbouring state of Oaxaca, a landslide killed a couple and army and navy personnel were scrambling to evacuate thousands from eight cities near a river dangerously close to unleashing flood waters last night.

Authorities in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, which took a direct hit from Hurricane Stan, said three people were killed and seven injured there, in addition to about 38,000 who were forced to leave their homes and head for higher ground temporarily.