Floods kill 160

2005-10-06 08:00

Guatemala City - Rescue workers were searching 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 this country and 62 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 on Wednesday night, Guatemalan emergency response officials reported that 79 people had been killed and 49 other injured in 88 communities affected by flooding and landslides.

Bodies pulled from mud

The hardest hit area was believed to be a town close to Lake Atitlan, a breathtaking freshwater reserve surrounded by volcanos and Mayan communities, 100km 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 spokesperson for emergency response officials.

In El Salvador, President Tony Saca said 62 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.

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.

Officials said six people were killed in Chiapas, 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.

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 on Wednesday night.

- AP