Guatemala Flood
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 8:56 am
A rush, a roar and two villages are gone
Death toll from Central American flooding reaches 250
Friday, October 7, 2005; Posted: 12:18 p.m. EDT (16:18 GMT)
A Mayan family evacuates from the flooding in Tecpan, 62 miles west of Guatemala City.
PATULUL, Guatemala (AP) -- There was a violent shudder and a roar. Then, the side of a volcano gave way, burying two villages under a rush of mud and water.
Residents said at least 50 people were killed in the landslide in Solola, a town close to the popular tourist destination of Lake Atitlan.
It was the deadliest of the floods that have killed 250 people in Central America and southern Mexico.(See the rushing water -- 3:12)
"We've been pulling bodies out for two days and we've found 50," Lucas Ajpus, a former firefighter coordinating rescue efforts, said via cell phone from Santiago Atitlan, near where the mudslide occurred.
Officials expected the death to toll to climb as they searched for more than 150 others who were missing.
Towns 'disappeared'
"There's still a lot to be done because two towns have disappeared completely," Ajpus said.
"You look at these people who have very little and they've lost everything," said 32-year-old Stephanie Jolluck, a businesswoman from Atlanta who has traveled to Guatemala for work since 1999.
Reached by phone in Panajachel, on the banks of Lake Atitlan, Jolluck fought back tears as she said rivers that were "six feet wide turned to 50 feet wide."
"Water is running out, food is running out and looters are coming now," she said.
Along Guatemala's Pacific coast, the Nahualate River broke from its banks, creating a new outlet to the sea and killing at least 20 people from a small, seaside village, navy officials said.
There was joy amid the tragedy. Claudio Manchinel, from Iztapa in coastal southern Guatemala, walked for hours through rain and mud with his pregnant wife, Leticia.
Upon reaching a highway, the couple stopped an ambulance, which took them to a naval base, where their son Claudio was born Wednesday.
Memories of Hurricane Mitch
Manchinel said the flooding reminded him of Hurricane Mitch, which killed at least 9,000 people throughout Central America seven years ago.
"We thought it was going to be like Mitch in 1998," he said Thursday. "But now it's worse."
In all, heavy rains sparked floods in more than 200 Guatemalan communities and killed 154 people. Another 31,450 had been forced to flee their homes.
The death toll stood at 65 in neighboring El Salvador and officials said nearly 54,000 people there had been evacuated.
The 250 people killed in the region included 14 earlier this week in Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica. An additional death was reported Thursday in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and three new fatalities were confirmed in Veracruz state, raising Mexico's total killed to 17.
In Chicomuselo, in Mexico's Chiapas state, hundreds of people in seven communities were left homeless and searching for food, some crossing the border from nearby Guatemala to seek help.
Guatemalan Mercedes Garcia said she escaped to Chiapas with her daughter, but was separated from her husband and three other children.
"I beg God that my family is alive in Guatemala," she said. "My house and everything else that was lost, that doesn't matter."
More than 25,000 people left homeless by flooding were living in 103 shelters statewide, and 55 bridges had been destroyed, according to Chiapas authorities.
In the larger Mexico-Guatemala border city of Tapachula, authorities estimated that 8,000 homes had been destroyed. Power and phone service had yet to be restored, and efforts to bring humanitarian aid into the city were complicated by new downpours.
Lines of residents waiting to buy natural gas in the rain snaked through major streets and essentials had begun to disappear from supermarket shelves.
Chiapas, Oaxaca cut off
Flooding in Mexico was exacerbated by Hurricane Stan, which came ashore along that country's Gulf Coast early Tuesday.
Reynaldo Escobar, interior secretary for Veracruz, which took a direct hit from the hurricane, said Thursday night that officials there had doubled their death toll to six.
Authorities in Oaxaca, which borders Chiapas, raised their state's number killed to three late Thursday.
Officials said 200 communities were cut off from surrounding areas. Some 80,000 people had been evacuated and 20,000 homes damaged or destroyed across Oaxaca.
Mexican President Vicente Fox visited a shelter in the hard-hit town of Tuxtepec and promised that aid was on the way. Mexico also airlifted food and emergency supplies to El Salvador.
The United States said it was donating $100,000 in household items to Mexico and would also offer humanitarian aid to Guatemala and other Central American countries.
Mexican troops recently returned from several weeks of helping U.S. officials clean up after Hurricane Katrina.
"To be united, to be friendly, pays and pays well," Fox said.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Death toll from Central American flooding reaches 250
Friday, October 7, 2005; Posted: 12:18 p.m. EDT (16:18 GMT)
A Mayan family evacuates from the flooding in Tecpan, 62 miles west of Guatemala City.
PATULUL, Guatemala (AP) -- There was a violent shudder and a roar. Then, the side of a volcano gave way, burying two villages under a rush of mud and water.
Residents said at least 50 people were killed in the landslide in Solola, a town close to the popular tourist destination of Lake Atitlan.
It was the deadliest of the floods that have killed 250 people in Central America and southern Mexico.(See the rushing water -- 3:12)
"We've been pulling bodies out for two days and we've found 50," Lucas Ajpus, a former firefighter coordinating rescue efforts, said via cell phone from Santiago Atitlan, near where the mudslide occurred.
Officials expected the death to toll to climb as they searched for more than 150 others who were missing.
Towns 'disappeared'
"There's still a lot to be done because two towns have disappeared completely," Ajpus said.
"You look at these people who have very little and they've lost everything," said 32-year-old Stephanie Jolluck, a businesswoman from Atlanta who has traveled to Guatemala for work since 1999.
Reached by phone in Panajachel, on the banks of Lake Atitlan, Jolluck fought back tears as she said rivers that were "six feet wide turned to 50 feet wide."
"Water is running out, food is running out and looters are coming now," she said.
Along Guatemala's Pacific coast, the Nahualate River broke from its banks, creating a new outlet to the sea and killing at least 20 people from a small, seaside village, navy officials said.
There was joy amid the tragedy. Claudio Manchinel, from Iztapa in coastal southern Guatemala, walked for hours through rain and mud with his pregnant wife, Leticia.
Upon reaching a highway, the couple stopped an ambulance, which took them to a naval base, where their son Claudio was born Wednesday.
Memories of Hurricane Mitch
Manchinel said the flooding reminded him of Hurricane Mitch, which killed at least 9,000 people throughout Central America seven years ago.
"We thought it was going to be like Mitch in 1998," he said Thursday. "But now it's worse."
In all, heavy rains sparked floods in more than 200 Guatemalan communities and killed 154 people. Another 31,450 had been forced to flee their homes.
The death toll stood at 65 in neighboring El Salvador and officials said nearly 54,000 people there had been evacuated.
The 250 people killed in the region included 14 earlier this week in Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica. An additional death was reported Thursday in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and three new fatalities were confirmed in Veracruz state, raising Mexico's total killed to 17.
In Chicomuselo, in Mexico's Chiapas state, hundreds of people in seven communities were left homeless and searching for food, some crossing the border from nearby Guatemala to seek help.
Guatemalan Mercedes Garcia said she escaped to Chiapas with her daughter, but was separated from her husband and three other children.
"I beg God that my family is alive in Guatemala," she said. "My house and everything else that was lost, that doesn't matter."
More than 25,000 people left homeless by flooding were living in 103 shelters statewide, and 55 bridges had been destroyed, according to Chiapas authorities.
In the larger Mexico-Guatemala border city of Tapachula, authorities estimated that 8,000 homes had been destroyed. Power and phone service had yet to be restored, and efforts to bring humanitarian aid into the city were complicated by new downpours.
Lines of residents waiting to buy natural gas in the rain snaked through major streets and essentials had begun to disappear from supermarket shelves.
Chiapas, Oaxaca cut off
Flooding in Mexico was exacerbated by Hurricane Stan, which came ashore along that country's Gulf Coast early Tuesday.
Reynaldo Escobar, interior secretary for Veracruz, which took a direct hit from the hurricane, said Thursday night that officials there had doubled their death toll to six.
Authorities in Oaxaca, which borders Chiapas, raised their state's number killed to three late Thursday.
Officials said 200 communities were cut off from surrounding areas. Some 80,000 people had been evacuated and 20,000 homes damaged or destroyed across Oaxaca.
Mexican President Vicente Fox visited a shelter in the hard-hit town of Tuxtepec and promised that aid was on the way. Mexico also airlifted food and emergency supplies to El Salvador.
The United States said it was donating $100,000 in household items to Mexico and would also offer humanitarian aid to Guatemala and other Central American countries.
Mexican troops recently returned from several weeks of helping U.S. officials clean up after Hurricane Katrina.
"To be united, to be friendly, pays and pays well," Fox said.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.