Guatemala searches, Eta regains storm status, heads to Cuba
PURULHA, Guatemala (AP) — Searchers in Guatemala dug through mud and debris looking for an estimated 100 people believed buried by a massive, rain-fueled landslide, as Tropical Storm Eta continued to gain strength Saturday and churned toward Cuba.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Eta was located about 230 miles ( 365 kms) west- southwest of Camaguey, Cuba, Saturday and was moving northeast at 17 mph (28 kph) with winds of 60 mph (95 kph). The storm was expected to approach the Cayman Islands, be near Cuba Saturday night and Sunday, and approach the Florida Keys or south Florida late Sunday.
Tropical storm warnings were issued for central Cuba, southern Florida and the Florida Keys. The hurricane center said flash floods could occur in the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, the Bahamas and southern Florida.
Back in Central America, which Eta reached as a Category 4 hurricane Tuesday before weakening into a tropical depression, authorities from Panama to Mexico were still surveying the damages from flooding and landslides following days of torrential rains. The confirmed death toll was in the dozens and expected to rise.
On Friday, search teams in Guatemalan pulled the first bodies from a landslide in San Cristobal Verapaz, but the work was slow and help was trickling in. Teams first had to overcome multiple landslides and deep mud just to reach the site where o cials have estimated some 150 homes were devastated.
In the village of Quejá, where a hillside collapsed onto homes, rescue workers used a helicopter to evacuate survivor Emilio Caal. He su ered a dislocated shoulder when the landslide sent rocks, trees and earth hurtling onto the home where he was about to sit down to lunch with his wife and grandchildren. Caal said he was blown several yards (meters) by the force of the slide, and that none of the others were able to get out.
“My wife is dead, my grandchildren are dead,” said Caal from a nearby hospital.
In neighboring Honduras, 68-year-old María Elena Mejía Guadron died when the brown waters of the Chamelecon river poured into San Pedro Sula’s Planeta neighborhood before dawn Thursday.
Mirian Esperanza Nájera Mejía had fled her home in the dark with her two children and Mejía, her mother. But while she held tight to her children, the current swept away Mejía.
Nájera continued searching desperately for her mother Friday morning. But Mejía’s body was recovered later and taken to the morgue where her relatives identified her.
“When the flooding started, the whole family was leaving the house,” said family friend Nery Solis. “Mirian had her two children and suddenly the current grabbed them and she wasn’t able to get her mom.”
The family transported Mejía’s body to the western city of Copan Friday. Her burial was scheduled for Saturday.
In southern
Mexico,
across the border from Guatemala, 20 people died as heavy rains attributed to Eta caused mudslides and swelled streams and rivers, according to Chiapas state civil defense official Elías Morales Rodríguez.
The worst incident in Mexico occurred in the mountain township of Chenalho, where 10 people were swept away by a rain-swollen stream; their bodies were later found downstream. Mexico’s National Meteorological Service said Eta’s “broad circulation is causing intense to torrential rains on the Yucatan peninsula and in southeastern Mexico.”
Flooding in the neighboring state of Tabasco was so bad that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador cut short a trip to western Mexico and was flying to Tabasco, his home state, to oversee relief e orts.
But the massive slide in Guatemala’s central mountains threatened to double Central America’s reported death toll in one remote community.
Late Friday, army spokesman Rubén Tellez said soldiers and community members had recovered the first three bodies. Hundreds of tons of mud, rock and debris entombed others.
Rescue teams struggled for hours Friday to reach the site from two di erent approaches. Smaller landslides blocked highways and decimated the dirt road leading to the community of Queja at the base of the slide. The indigenous community of about 1,200 residents consisted of simple homes of wood and tin roofs clinging to the mountainside.