86 perish in Guatemala mudslide
SANTA CATARINA PINULA: Hopes faded of finding any remaining survivors of a massive landslide in Guatemala that killed at least 86 people, even as families scrabbled through rubble to find the bodies of loved ones, with hundreds of others still missing.
Distraught relatives of the victims shovelled alongside diggers through the mounds of earth that destroyed homes in Santa Catarina Pinula on the south-eastern flank of Guatemala City after Thursday night’s collapse of a hillside.
Every batch of earth turned up by the diggers held more personal belongings, from mattresses and books to toys and Christmas decorations, reminders of about 350 people who authorities said were still unaccounted for.
Clutching photos of loved ones, family members stood in line outside a makeshift mortuary near the excavation site, some of them crying, to see if they recognised any of the corpses.
“This is the worst thing that has happened to us,” said Ana Maria Escobar, a 48-yearold housewife, sobbing as she waited for news of 21 missing family members who lived in the town she had left a year ago.
“So far, only my sister-inlaw has been found,” she added.
One digger unearthed the body of a young girl with scratch marks on her arms and legs, which rescue workers said may have been signs of her struggle to escape. People looking on cried out to prevent the digger from destroying her body.
Gaby Ramirez, an 18-yearold courier, had been searching for her brother with shovel in hand since 6am, after the landslide buried a neighbour’s house he was visiting.
“I don’t hope to find him alive, but I do hope to find his body and bury him,” she said. “I have to bury him, I can’t leave him there.”
Loosened by rain, tons of earth, rock and trees had cascaded onto a neighbourhood of the town known as El Cambray II near the bottom of a ravine, flattening houses and trapping residents who had gone home for the night.
Some houses were buried under about 15m of earth, and Guatemalan disaster management said it doubted any other survivors would be found.
“Hope is the last thing you lose, so we hope to find someone alive,” Defence Minister Williams Mansilla said. – Reuters