AMERICA/GUATEMALA - Rescuers at work after the landslides swept away a village: 131 dead and 300 missing

Guatemala City (Agenzia Fides) - There is little hope of finding people alive under the mountain of mud which submerged the town of Santa Caterina Pinula, Guatemala. The total of confirmed dead has risen to 131, but so far only 90 bodies have been recovered and identified. Among the dead there are at least 26 minors. The missing are about 300. In reality it was a series of huge landslides which buried hundreds of houses in this town on the outskirts of the capital of Guatemala. Yesterday, during the Angelus, Pope Francis called for prayers for the victims of the landslide.
According to information sent to Fides by missionary sources in the Guatemalan capital, rescue operations were repeatedly suspended because of heavy rains that continued to fall on the scene of the disaster on Thursday, October 1, when the torrential rain, the mud and debris engulfed the village of El Cambray II, in the municipality of Santa Catarina Pinula.
Fides sources report that about 900 rescuers are at work, trying to find any survivors and to recover the bodies of the victims.
The disaster is the worst ever recorded in Guatemala after the two earthquakes in 2012 and 2014 in the southeast of the Country. In 2005 hundreds of people were killed by landslides caused by torrential rains that completely buried the village of Panabaj. Many of the bodies were never recovered. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 05/10/2015)

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