GUATEMALA CITY/TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – The death toll from the calamitous storm Eta in Central America soared on Friday after the Guatemalan military reached a remote mountainous village where torrential rains had triggered devastating mudslides, killing about 100 people.
Many of the dead were buried in their homes in the remote Queja village in central region of Alta Verapaz, where about 150 houses had been swallowed by mudslides, Guatemalan army spokesman Ruben Tellez told Reuters, citing preliminary figures.
The area around Queja village appeared to be the site of a huge landslide on a road pass a decade ago, which left dozens of people dead, Tellez added.
“Now with all this (Eta) phenomenon it collapsed again,” Tellez said.
Photos of the Queja landslide showed a lengthy strip of brown mud peeled from the lush green hillside. Footage from another part of Guatemala showed boats ferrying villagers in flooded regions and rescue workers carrying children on their backs, wading through water up to their hips.
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei indicated the death toll could jump even higher, with the number of dead and missing in Queja village estimated to total about 150.
One of the fiercest storms to hit Central America in years, Eta on Friday dumped more torrential rain across large parts of Central America and the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned “catastrophic flooding” in the region would continue.
Rescue operations across Honduras and Guatemala have been slowed by destroyed roads and bridges, forcing authorities to draft in the military and use helicopters and speedboats to rescue people stranded on top of their houses.
Eta wrought chaos after plowing into Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday with winds of 150 miles per hour (241 kph), before weakening to a tropical depression and unleashing torrents of rain on regions of Honduras and Guatemala.
“This is the worst storm Honduras has seen in decades. The damage will undoubtedly be significant,” said Mark Connolly, UNICEF Representative in Honduras, who estimated about 1.5 million children there will be impacted by Eta.
Eta’s devastation will likely trigger memories of Hurricane Mitch, which killed some 10,000 people in Central America in 1998.
Giammattei earlier added that bad weather was hampering emergency efforts, which were further limited by the country having only one helicopter adequate for rescue operations.
