PANABAJ (Guatemala): A Guatemalan village buried under tons of dirt and debris may be declared a Mayan mass grave as rescuers give up digging for the remains of up to 1,400 people killed in a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Stan.

After days of heavy rain, mud, rocks and trees crashed down a volcano’s slopes and into the Maya Indian village of Panabaj as people slept early on Wednesday, covering it in a quagmire up to 40 feet deep in places.

Some 1,400 people have disappeared and are dead according to the fire department, and a local official in charge of compiling death lists put the likely toll at about 1,000.

Foreign Minister Jorge Briz told Reuters the official toll was just over 500 dead but that was likely to at least double.

Rescuers dug for bodies in the stinking black mulch, choking on the smell of death. But they may have to abandon their search under a Guatemalan law that for health reasons puts a 72-hour limit on finding the dead.

Dozens of corpses have already been recovered and locals were drawing up names of the missing and dead, but with so many victims feared buried, authorities said they might abandon the search and declare the village a mass grave.

“We’re more concerned with getting food to the people who are alive,” said Ana Luisa Olmedo, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s civil protection agency.

Rescue workers stuffed herbs in their nostrils to block out the sickly odour of death. Others barked orders in the Mayan Tzutujil language as hundreds of men dug through the sludge with hoes, shovels and pick axes.

Behind a makeshift rope barrier, dozens of women dressed in the village’s traditional purple blouses embroidered with birds and animals awaited news of missing kin.

Jose Tacaxoy, 28, sat in the mud near one of several trenches being dug in the quagmire, clutching a tattered photograph of his brother’s wife with her three children.

“My brother is a salesman and was away when it happened, the rest are dead,” he said choking back tears.

On a list he carried of 11 missing cousins was a cross through the name of the only one whose body had been found.—Reuters