Ash and tears
Guatemala in anguish as volcano toll hits 69
EL RODEO, Guatemala — Rescuers pulled survivors and bodies from the charred aftermath of the powerful eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano, as the death toll rose to 69 on Monday and was expected to go higher from a disaster that caught residents of remote mountain hamlets off guard, with little or no time to flee to safety.
Using shovels and backhoes, emergency workers dug through the debris and mud, perilous labor on smoldering terrain still hot enough to melt shoe soles a day after the volcano exploded in a hail of ash, smoke and molten rock.
Bodies were so thickly coated with ash that they looked like statues, and rescuers had to use sledgehammers to break through the roofs of buried houses to see if anyone was trapped inside.
Fanuel Garcia, director of the National Institute of Forensic Sciences, said 69 bodies were recovered and 17 identified.
“It is very difficult for us to identify them because some of the dead lost their features or their fingerprints” from the red-hot flows, Garcia said. “We are going to have to resort to other methods . . . and if possible take DNA samples to identify them.”
Hilda Lopez said her mother and sister were still missing after the slurry of hot gas, ash and rock roared from Volcan de Fuego — or Volcano of Fire — into her village of San Miguel Los Lotes.
“One of the neighbors shouted at us to come out and see the lava that was coming,” the distraught woman 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. Her husband, Joel Gonzalez, said his father also was unable to escape and was believed to be “buried back there, at the house.”
Guatemalan authorities said they’ve closely monitored the volcano, one of Central America’s most active, after activity picked up around 6 a.m. Sunday.
David de Leon, a spokesman for Conred, the nation’s disaster agency, said flows of lava, ash and rock mixed with water and debris gushed down the volcano, blocking roads and burning homes. “It arrived in communities right when the evacuation alerts were being sent out,” he said.
Some communities emptied out safely. But in places like Los Lotes and the village of El Rodeo, about 8 miles downslope from the crater, the flows overtook people in homes and streets with temperatures reaching as high as 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit.