Guatemala volcano toll rises to 69
THE death toll from a volcanic eruption in Guatemala rose to 69 as family members desperately searched for the missing in makeshift morgues and on streets blanketed with ash.
Guatemala’s national disaster agency, CONRED, increased the death toll on Monday as more bodies were pulled from the debris around the village of El Rodeo, which was hard hit by the eruption. Just a fraction of the victims have been identified so far.
At a makeshift morgue in the city of Escuintla, about 30 kilometers from the explosion, distraught family members came to search for their relatives among the dead.
Francisco Quiche, a 46-year-old welder, gave a blood sample to try to identify his son’s body, though he already knew his son’s fate.
After evacuating the town of El Rodeo with his family, he returned to search for his son and daughter-in-law. Peering through a hole in the wall of his son’s home, Quiche saw the boy’s body. He fears his daughter-in-law is dead as well.
“We had time to leave, but I am very sorry for the loss of my son and my daughter-inlaw,” he said through tears. “My son was just 22 years old, the same as my daughter-in-law, who was expecting a baby.”
The eruption of Fuego — Spanish for “fire” — on Sunday was the biggest in more than four decades, forcing the closure of Guatemala’s main international airport and dumping ash on thousands of hectares of coffee farms on the volcano’s slopes.
By Monday evening, the volcano’s activity was lessening, and is expected to continue to diminish in the coming days, said Eddy Sanchez, director of the seismological, volcanic and meteorological institute Insivumeh.
The task of retrieving bodies on Monday was hindered by another eruption and an apparent landslide on the southern slopes of Fuego triggered fresh evacuations. Later in the afternoon, heavy rains forced rescuers to abandon the search in El Rodeo until the next morning, a spokesman for CONRED said.
Rains are expected to continue to complicate searches in the coming days.
Elsewhere, the process of mourning had begun. Local television footage showed residents of villages walking through the streets, caskets hoisted on their shoulders.
Structures and trees at the base of the Fuego volcano were completely coated in brown and gray. As late as Monday afternoon, the volcano continued expelling a dark cloud of gases and rocks.