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10/09/2005:

"Guatemalan victims buried in mud"

SANTIAGO ATITLÁN, Guatemala — Dozens of Mayan Indians used hand tools to dig through hardening mud yesterday, searching for bodies under a landslide that swallowed a Guatemalan neighborhood and pushed the regionwide death toll from a week of pounding rains to 617.

There were also reports that between 1,200 and 1,400 people may have been killed in a single massive mudslide early Wednesday in the Guatemalan village of Panabaj. A fire brigade official in the village told the Reuters news agency that no survivors were left after torrential rains dropped a suffocating wall of mud onto the hillside community of 250 houses.

One of the hardest hit was the lakeside town of Santiago Atitlán, where the side of a volcano collapsed, killing at least 208 people. Officials said the victims were among 508 people killed and an additional 337 missing in Guatemala.

The rest of the dead were scattered throughout El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica.
seattletimes.nwsource.com