SANTA PINULA: At least 30 people were dead and several hundred missing on Friday a day after a landslide smashed through a village on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital, officials said.

More than 500 rescue workers, police and soldiers, as well as desperate residents, clawed away at the debris with picks and shovels searching for survivors all day and into the late evening, before suspending the painstaking hunt for the night.

Families reported receiving text messages from people they believed to still be trapped, more than 24 hours after the landslide struck the village of El Cambray II, in the municipality of Santa Catarina Pinula.

Authorities said that about 600 people are missing and they expect the death toll to rise. Their estimate is based on the 125 homes that Thursday’s landslide destroyed or damaged after heavy rain. The affected area is about 15 kilometres east of the capital Guatemala City.

“We have 29 dead people identified and one still unidentified,” Sergio Cabanas, incident commander for the government’s disaster reduction office CONRAD, said. The victims include at least three children.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play