Tropical Storm Agatha kills 16, toll may climb
Source: Agencies |
May 31, 2010, Monday
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TORRENTIAL rains brought by the first tropical storm of the 2010 season pounded Central America and southern Mexico, triggering deadly landslides and killed 16 people yesterday but authorities said the number could rise.
Tropical Storm Agatha made landfall near the border of Guatemala and Mexico on Saturday with wind speed of up to 75 kilometers per hour, then weakened into a tropical depression before dissipating over the mountains.
Although no longer even a tropical depression, Agatha still posed trouble for the region: Remnants of the storm were expected to deliver 25 to 50 centimeters of rain over southeastern Mexico, Guatemala and parts of El Salvador, creating the possibility of "life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the United States National Hurricane Center in Miami said in an advisory yesterday.
Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said late Saturday the rivers in the country's south were flooding or close to it. Colom said 10.8 centimeters of rain had fallen in Guatemala City's valley in 12 hours, the most since 1949.
By late Saturday, 4,300 people were in shelters.
Earlier Saturday, Agatha's rains caused a landslide on a hillside settlement in Guatemala City that killed four people and left 11 missing, Guatemalan disaster relief spokesman David de Leon said. Most of the city was without electricity at nightfall, complicating search efforts.
Four children were killed by another mudslide in the town of Santa Catarina Pinula, about 10 kilometers outside the capital. And in the department of Quetzaltenango, 200 kilometers west of Guatemala City, a boulder loosened by rains crushed a house, killing two children and two adults.
A three-story building in northern Guatemala City fell into a sinkhole but there were no reports of victims.
In El Salvador, President Mauricio Funes declared a "red alert" after rains delivered by Agatha killed two adults and a child.
In Honduras, national emergency agency Copeco reported one man was crushed to death by a wall that collapsed in the town of Santa Ana, near the capital of Tegucigalpa.
Tropical Storm Agatha made landfall near the border of Guatemala and Mexico on Saturday with wind speed of up to 75 kilometers per hour, then weakened into a tropical depression before dissipating over the mountains.
Although no longer even a tropical depression, Agatha still posed trouble for the region: Remnants of the storm were expected to deliver 25 to 50 centimeters of rain over southeastern Mexico, Guatemala and parts of El Salvador, creating the possibility of "life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the United States National Hurricane Center in Miami said in an advisory yesterday.
Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said late Saturday the rivers in the country's south were flooding or close to it. Colom said 10.8 centimeters of rain had fallen in Guatemala City's valley in 12 hours, the most since 1949.
By late Saturday, 4,300 people were in shelters.
Earlier Saturday, Agatha's rains caused a landslide on a hillside settlement in Guatemala City that killed four people and left 11 missing, Guatemalan disaster relief spokesman David de Leon said. Most of the city was without electricity at nightfall, complicating search efforts.
Four children were killed by another mudslide in the town of Santa Catarina Pinula, about 10 kilometers outside the capital. And in the department of Quetzaltenango, 200 kilometers west of Guatemala City, a boulder loosened by rains crushed a house, killing two children and two adults.
A three-story building in northern Guatemala City fell into a sinkhole but there were no reports of victims.
In El Salvador, President Mauricio Funes declared a "red alert" after rains delivered by Agatha killed two adults and a child.
In Honduras, national emergency agency Copeco reported one man was crushed to death by a wall that collapsed in the town of Santa Ana, near the capital of Tegucigalpa.
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