Nearly 100 killed in Guatemala landslide, hundreds missing

World Today

Members of a Mexican rescue team search victims at the site of a mudslide in Cambray, a neighborhood in the suburb of Santa Catarina Pinula, on the outskirts of Guatemala City, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2015. Hope faded Sunday for finding any survivors of a mudslide that killed at least 87 people as authorities said that hundreds more may still be missing. (AP Photo/Luis Soto)

Nearly 100 people were killed when massive mudslides buried scores of homes on the outskirts of Guatemala’s capital city, officials said Sunday, as the death toll continued to climb. 

Hundreds of people were still missing, three days after the landslides suddenly hit, raising the prospect that the number of people who perished in the disaster could rise much higher.

“Our most recent tally is that there are 96 confirmed dead and recovered, and still about 300 people missing and unaccounted for,” said volunteer fire brigade spokesman Julio Sanchez.

He told reporters that several young children, including newborn babies, were among the dead in Santa Catarina Pinula.

On Thursday night, following heavy rain, waterlogged earth and debris tore through the village of El Cambray II, in the municipality of Santa Catarina Pinula, destroying or damaging 125 homes.

At dawn Saturday, rescue workers, police, soldiers and volunteers began a second day of clawing away at the debris with picks and shovels.

Two firefighters were injured later in the day when a wall collapsed as they were trying to extract a body from the rubble.

Nearby, relatives of the missing checked in at a makeshift morgue set up next to the buried homes.

Municipal authorities had urged the community, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) east of the capital Guatemala City, to relocate several times, most recently in November of last year.

But many families have refused, saying that they have nowhere to go.

Families have reported receiving text messages from people they believed to still be trapped.

The impact of the heavy rain was exacerbated by a nearby river, officials said.

According to a report by Xinhua Espanol, the death toll is 107.

Report compiled with information from AFP and Xinhua Espanol.