He said the landslide demolished 125 homes, and that there could be 600 people missing.
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“We have 29 dead people identified, and one still unidentified”, said Sergio Cabanas, incident commander for the government’s disaster reduction office CONRAD, commenting on Thursday’s landslide following heavy rains.
Residents transfer their belongings after a landslide in the Cambray Two neighborhood in Santa Catarina Pinula township, Guatemala Department, Guatemala, on October. 2, 2015.
The victims include at least three children.
Among the bodies, rescuers found a mother embracing her two girls, one doctor on the scene said.
Heavy rains swept a torrent of boulders and mud onto houses on Thursday in the village of El Cambray Dos, about 15km (nine miles) east of Guatemala City.
Between 500 and 600 people were asleep in their homes when the mudslide occurred, he added.
CITY (AP) – Homemaker Dulce del Carmen Lavarenzo Pu had just returned from church when the ground shook and she heard a awful noise. At its center, the landslide buried houses under a layer of rocks and earth as much as 50 feet (15 meters) deep.
Early in the day, Marleni Pu, 25, stood at the edge of the mudslide, her face swollen with weeping.
“I feel like I’ve lost my loved ones because all my neighbours died”, said survivor Melina Hidalgo, 35.
Then searchers dug out her relative, Rony Ramos, and took him on a stretcher to a hospital.
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Qainy Bonilla, an 18-year-old national squash player who had hoped to represent his country at the 2016 Olympics, was among those killed, Xinhua news agency reported. A few of the homes in the village, which sits on the edge of a small river, were abandoned by their owners for fear of further mudslides.
