Eruption in Guatemala
Copters save 10 from ash; shoe-melting heat slows rescuers
Firefighters remove a body recovered near the Volcano of Fire on Monday in Escuintla, Guatemala. Rescuers have found the bodies of several more victims from the volcano’s eruption, and emergency workers have pulled some people still alive from ash drifts and mud flows.
EL RODEO, Guatemala — The death toll from Guatemala’s erupting Volcano of Fire rose Monday to 69 before officials suspended the search until dawn today.
Rescuers in helicopters pulled at least 10 people alive from ash drifts and mud flows that were up to the rooflines of some homes, forcing first responders to use sledgehammers to break through the roofs to see whether anyone was trapped inside.
Fanuel Garcia, director of the National Institute of Forensic Science, said that few of the bodies had been identified because the flows that reached temperatures as high as 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit had so disfigured them.
“We’re having a lot of trouble identifying them because some of the dead lost their features or their fingerprints,” Garcia said. “We’re going to have to use other anthropological methods and if possible take DNA samples to identify them.”
Using shovels and backhoes, emergency workers dug through the debris and mud, perilous labor on smoldering terrain still hot enough to melt shoe soles.
Residents of El Rodeo, about 8 miles downslope from the crater, said they were caught unaware by the fast-moving ash and rock when the volcano west of Guatemala City exploded Sunday, sending towering clouds into the air.
Searing flows of ash mixed with water and debris gushed down the volcano’s flanks, blocking roads and burning homes.
Hilda Lopez said the volcanic mud swept into her village of San Miguel Los Lotes, just below the mountain’s flanks, and she didn’t know where her mother and sister were.
“We were at a party, celebrating the birth of a baby,
when one of the neighbors shouted at us to come out and see the lava that was coming,” she said. “We didn’t believe it, and when we went out, the hot mud was already coming down the street.”
“My mother was stuck there; she couldn’t get out,” said Lopez, weeping and holding her face in her hands.
Lopez’s husband, Joel Gonzalez, said his father had been unable to escape and was believed to be “buried back there, at the house.”
In El Rodeo, heavily armed soldiers wearing blue masks to ward off the dust stood guard behind yellow tape that cordoned off the scene as workers operated a backhoe. A group of residents arrived at the scene with shovels and work boots.
Some residents criticized authorities, saying they never learned of the danger until it was upon them.
The country’s disaster agency “never told us to leave. When the lava was already here, they passed by in their pickup trucks yelling at us to leave, but the cars did not stop to pick up the people,” said Rafael Letran, a resident of El Rodeo. “The government is good at stealing, but when it comes to helping people, they lack spark.”
Authorities have said they feared the death toll could rise because a number of people were unaccounted for. The disaster agency said 3,265 people had been evacuated and that nearly 2,000 people were in shelters.
Among the fatalities were four people, including a disaster agency official, killed when lava set a house on fire in El Rodeo, National Disaster Coordinator Sergio Cabanas said. Two children were burned to death as they watched the eruption from a bridge, he added.
Video showed a fast-moving flow of mud, ash and slurry slamming into and partly destroying a bridge on a highway between the towns of Sacatepequez and Escuintla.
Ash from the volcano, about 27 miles west of Guatemala City, fell on the capital area as well as nearby Sacatepequez, Chimaltenango and Escuintla. Streets and houses were dusted in the colonial town of Antigua, a popular tourist destination.
Aviation authorities closed Guatemala City’s international airport because of the danger posed to planes, but the airport was reopened by mid-morning Monday after workers cleared away ash.
One of Central America’s most active volcanoes, the conical Volcano of Fire reaches an elevation of 12,346 feet above sea level at its peak. Sunday’s eruption was the volcano’s second this year.