Hundreds feared dead in Mexico landslide as bad weather continues

by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post
Sep 29 2010

A HILLSIDE collapsed on hundreds of sleeping residents yesterday in a rural Mexican community drenched for days by a hurricane and a tropical storm, killing at least seven and leaving at least 100 missing, disaster officials said.

The death toll could rise much higher in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, a town about 130 miles south-east of Mexico City.

Oaxaca state Civil Protection operations coordinator Luis Marin said 100 people were confirmed missing, but Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz told the Televisa television network 500 to 1,000 people could be buried.

At least 100 homes were buried, and residents who made it out have had no success digging out their neighbours, said Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec.

“We have been using a backhoe but there is a lot of mud. We can’t even see the homes, we can’t hear shouts, we can’t hear anything,” he said.

An eighth person was killed in another mudslide in the state of Oaxaca.

Weeks of heavy rains, including those brought by Hurricane Karl and Tropical Storm Matthew, have caused havoc and dozens of other deaths in southern Mexico, Central America and parts of South America.

Vargas said the slide dragged houses packed with sleeping families some 1,300 feet downhill, along with cars, animals and electricity poles.

Vargas said he contacted the governor on the town’s satellite phone but that eight hours after the slide no rescue crews had reached the area.

“There is no way to communicate, the roads are shut down. All we have is this satellite phone,” Vargas said. Meanwhile, Vargas said there was another hill about to give way in another area of the community of 9,000 people.

Rescuers were flying in from Mexico City and emergency personnel have been sent to the town about 50 miles east of Oaxaca, the closest large city.

In Honduras, authorities said four people, including a child, drowned in rivers and creeks swollen by Tropical Storm Matthew. The National Emergencies Commission said that three adults died in the town of El Oregano and a 10-year-old child in the Caribbean coast town of La Lima.