Rescuers focus on six hamlets on slopes of Guatemala volcano
HOPES of finding survivors of Guatemala’s El Fuego volcano’s devastating eruption are now focused on six hamlets high up the mountain.
It is believed people might have found refuge there from the superheated wall of gas, ash and mud that hurtled down from the crater and buried two whole villages further down.
“The army is flying over the area looking for signs of life,” Mario Cruz, a spokesman for the fire brigade, told The Daily Telegraph. “They haven’t found anybody yet.”
The official number of those missing stands at 192, a preliminary figure because nobody knows how many people were on the mountain when El Fuego erupted on Sunday around midday.
The death toll locally was 75 yesterday morning, though this was expected to be revised upwards during the day. So far, officials have identified about a third of the bodies recovered.
Mr Cruz said firefighters dug up three bodies during their first hours of work in El Rodeo and San Miguel los Lotes, the two villages filled with farmers that once nestled in the lush foothills of the volcano that were suddenly transformed into moonscapes.
Rescue workers say it is hard to imagine how anybody caught up in the pyroclastic flows could have survived.
Officials say most would have died from asphyxia. The ash and debris covering buildings would have been unlikely to leave the kind of air pockets that can sometimes keep earthquake victims alive for days.
Heavy rain last night has cooled the temperatures down somewhat but has also hardened the ash. The authorities have also warned that the rain has increased the danger of muddy avalanches adding more devastation to the eruption that also left dozens in hospital and thousands in shelters struggling to come to terms with their loss.