Volcano eruption kills at least 62 in Guatemala

EL RODEO, Guatemala — The charred landscape left behind by Guatemala’s erupting Volcano of Fire was still too hot in many places Monday to pull out bodies so thickly coated with ash that they looked like statues as the death toll rose to 62.

Rescuers in helicopters managed to pull 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 if anyone was trapped inside.

Residents of El Rodeo, about eight miles from the crater, said they were caught unaware by the fastmoving hot ash and rock when the volcano west of Guatemala City exploded Sunday.

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. A firefighter carries the body of a child recovered near the Volcano of Fire in Escuintla, Guatemala.

“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,” the distraught woman said. “When we went out the hot mud was already coming down the street.”

At least 62 people were confirmed dead and the toll was expected to rise. All came from the hamlets of Los Lotes and El Rodeo, but only 13 had been identified so far

because the flows that reached temperatures as high as 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit had so disfigured the bodies.

Some residents said 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.