Guatemala resumes search after landslides
Source: Agencies |
September 7, 2010, Tuesday
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EMERGENCY services in Guatemala yesterday resumed their search for victims of landslides that killed and buried dozens of people, as further rain was predicted for the Central American country.
Heavy rains pummeled Guatemala over the weekend, forcing authorities to call off rescue efforts and sending people fleeing from the saturated hillsides.
Fire officials in Guatemala City said the bodies of 22 people had been recovered after twin landslides on one of the country's main highways in the Cumbre de Alaska region northwest of the capital.
The death toll was expected to reach 50.
Flooding and landslides in other areas brought the weekend death toll to at least 44, President Alvaro Colom told local radio.
"The hillsides are very unstable, saturated with water and really it's a dangerous area. There are landslides everywhere, on all the major routes in the country.
"People are waiting for the recovery of the bodies of their friends, family, fathers, sons. Really it has been a tragic weekend for the country."
Firefighters confirmed at least 20 dead in the village of Nahuala, where the twin slides hit a section of the Inter-American highway, regional fire department Major Otto Mazariegos said.
"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," Mazariegos said.
Pascual Tuy, a Nahuala police officer, said he shouted a warning as the mountain began to crumble the second time, but moments later the slide buried a number of rescuers. He ran for his life and the mud only caught his legs.
"The mountain was making noise like an earthquake, but people wouldn't leave," Tuy said. "They were being stubborn and didn't get out."
Down the same road, closer to Guatemala City, another slide partially buried another bus and killed at least 12 people. Four children and two adults died in slides elsewhere.
Tuy said there had been several landslides along the Inter-American highway in the last year, and authorities knew of the danger.
"Last year there was a landslide there, 15 days ago there was a landslide. But now a big one came," he said.
Heavy rains pummeled Guatemala over the weekend, forcing authorities to call off rescue efforts and sending people fleeing from the saturated hillsides.
Fire officials in Guatemala City said the bodies of 22 people had been recovered after twin landslides on one of the country's main highways in the Cumbre de Alaska region northwest of the capital.
The death toll was expected to reach 50.
Flooding and landslides in other areas brought the weekend death toll to at least 44, President Alvaro Colom told local radio.
"The hillsides are very unstable, saturated with water and really it's a dangerous area. There are landslides everywhere, on all the major routes in the country.
"People are waiting for the recovery of the bodies of their friends, family, fathers, sons. Really it has been a tragic weekend for the country."
Firefighters confirmed at least 20 dead in the village of Nahuala, where the twin slides hit a section of the Inter-American highway, regional fire department Major Otto Mazariegos said.
"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," Mazariegos said.
Pascual Tuy, a Nahuala police officer, said he shouted a warning as the mountain began to crumble the second time, but moments later the slide buried a number of rescuers. He ran for his life and the mud only caught his legs.
"The mountain was making noise like an earthquake, but people wouldn't leave," Tuy said. "They were being stubborn and didn't get out."
Down the same road, closer to Guatemala City, another slide partially buried another bus and killed at least 12 people. Four children and two adults died in slides elsewhere.
Tuy said there had been several landslides along the Inter-American highway in the last year, and authorities knew of the danger.
"Last year there was a landslide there, 15 days ago there was a landslide. But now a big one came," he said.
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