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Rescuers move the body of a victim in the El Cambray neighbourhood of Santa Catarina Pinula in Guatemala which has been devastated by a landslide.
Rescuers move the body of a victim in the El Cambray neighbourhood of Santa Catarina Pinula in Guatemala which has been devastated by a landslide. Photograph: [e]Luis Echeverria/Xinhua Press/Corbis
Rescuers move the body of a victim in the El Cambray neighbourhood of Santa Catarina Pinula in Guatemala which has been devastated by a landslide. Photograph: [e]Luis Echeverria/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Guatemala landslide: under the mud, dead families found huddled together

This article is more than 8 years old

In the disaster-hit town of Santa Catarina Pinula, rescuers are digging through 12m of debris just to reach the rooftops of houses before making gruesome discoveries

Beneath the mud and rock that engulfed the small Guatemalan town of Santa Catarina Pinula, search crews have found entire families who died huddled together after they were buried alive.

At least 161 people were killed in Thursday’s disaster just outside Guatemala City, government officials said on Monday night, and emergency services chief Alejandro Maldonado said at least 300 people were still unaccounted for.

Relatives pay their last respects to a victim of the landslide. Photograph: Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images

The mud that swallowed the El Cambray neighborhood, which lies at the bottom of a deep ravine, is so deep that rescue workers are descending 12m (39ft) through narrow shafts to reach the roofs of homes.

“We’ve found entire families,” said Sergio Cabanas, an official at disaster agency Conred. “We found almost all of them huddled together, which means that they were going to try and evacuate but sadly they didn’t have time.“

“Some died from the impact, some from asphyxiation and some ... from heart attacks,” he added.

Rescue efforts have been hampered by the precarious situation at the site, said Cabanas. There were two smaller landslides on Monday. A nearby river has risen by over 1m (3ft), and rescue workers fear for the stability of the hillside where the landslide began.

Bulldozers move earth at the disaster site. Photograph: Moises Castillo/AP

So far, no survivors have been found at the site, and rescue workers say the chances of finding anyone alive under the 120,000 tonnes of earth that buried the area are close to zero.

But rescue teams, who are using bulldozers and backhoes to search the huge mound of dirt, vowed to keep up the search.

“Our determination to continue is firm. We’re not going to stop until we finish the job. The objective is that nobody is left buried at the site,” Maldonado told a press conference.

Guatemala’s government, which is in disarray after former president Otto Perez was forced to resign and was arrested on corruption charges last month, declared three days of mourning for those lost in the landslide.

People wait for the remains of their relatives outside a morgue in Santa Catarina Pinula. Photograph: STRINGER/Reuters

More and more questions were being asked about why people were allowed to build homes at the base of a dangerous hillside next to a small river.

Conred said on Monday that it had warned about the risk to Cambray, a middle-class area populated by government workers, since last year, and had recommended that residents be relocated.

Conred has now declared the Cambray area uninhabitable, and many residents are now living in shelters. Its director, Alejandro Maldonado, said he had warned the local mayor that the river was eating away at the base of the steep hill. Maldonado said he was still waiting for a report from local authorities about what they had done in response to the warning.

Maldonado acknowledged there are many neighborhoods like Cambray in and around Guatemala City that are at risk of flooding or mudslides.

“What happened in Cambray is just a tragic case of what could potentially happen throughout the city,” Maldonado said.

On Monday, 187 people waited on makeshift beds inside the Salon Municipal, an auditorium the town usually employs for events and parties. Displaced families were given food, medical services, activities for children and psychological services there. The Guatemalan Red Cross made an appeal on Twitter for dry ice at its provisional morgue in the town.

Soldiers and rescue workers restart the search in Santa Catarina Pinula. Photograph: Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images

But no one yet was talking about relocation or compensation for losing their homes, most of which remain intact and weren’t hit by the slide.

Most people there were homeowners, and said they built their homes with all the proper permits, and never had any warning of slide danger. They were more focused on the river that occasionally overflows its banks.

Sonia Hernandez, 26, who had 10 family members displaced and five from another house missing, said they were never warned of the danger. She said her parents had had their home there for 20 years.

“If we had been warned of the danger we were running we never would have bought ... practically our own tomb,” Hernandez said.

Clara Elena Solorzano, 40, had lived in the neighborhood for 17 years in a house built by her husband. They only ever thought of the river as a danger, but it had never reached their home. She never heard anything about a risk of mudslides.
Now she expects the government to help them find a new place to live.

“They told us they have to get organized, they have to buy land,” she said. “Also that they’re getting money together to buy us homes, but nothing concrete.”

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