At least 131 killed in Guatemala landslide, hundreds missing

Due to heavy rain from recent days, waterlogged earth and waste rush through the village of El Cambray II, in the municipality of Santa Catarina Pinula, destroying 130 homes.

Hope faded Sunday for finding any survivors of a mudslide that killed at least 131 people as rescuers reported that the buried dwellings they reached were filled with water, suggesting that anyone trapped inside would have drowned.

Bulldozers were used to speed up the work but no survivor had been found over the weekend.

“Our most recent tally is that there are 96 confirmed dead and recovered, and still about 300 people missing and unaccounted for”, said volunteer fire brigade spokesman Julio Sanchez.

‘May God have mercy on the dead, grant healing to the injured, comfort loved ones and give the rescue workers strength, ‘ he said on Twitter.

As the recovered bodies continued to be more decomposed, they would use DNA, said municipal medical examiner Dr. Carlos Augusto Rodas Gonzalez. Pictured: Rescue workers carry a body unearthed outside Santa Catarina Pinula Sunday. Chaffetz said Sunday, October 4, 2015, he’s running for House speaker in a longshot challenge to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California.

Reginaldo Gomez buried his grandson Andres in one of the tombs and asked that a space be set aside nearby for the boy’s mother and sister, still missing among the mounds of earth and shattered homes littering the valley floor at Santa Catarina. She opened the window to see what was going on and saw a dust cloud coming toward them.

The BBC reports that aside from the people that were killed when a hillside collapsed on houses in the village of El Cambray, 350 people are still considered missing.

The last time a mudslide of this force tore through Guatemala was in 2005, when mudslides claimed hundreds of lives in the city of Panabaj.

The tragedy has hit Guatemala after weeks of political turmoil, just as it prepares to elect a new president. Numerous bodies were never recovered.

“Mourning is very hard without a corpse”, said Elser Oronez, 41, a senior physician at the shelter.