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More than 60 missing and 20 dead in Guatemala landslide PDF Print E-mail

    * Story Highlights
    * NEW: Up to 60 people missing in Guatemala landslide, rescue
officials say
    * Two people died in landslide in the same area in mid-December,
paper says
    * Search resumes early Monday after concerns over more landslides

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (CNN) -- At least 22 people died, and up to 60
more are missing in a landslide in Guatemala, rescue officials said Monday.

A landslide in the same area in northwest Guatemala killed two people
December 14.

Six people were injured and 40 to 60 were missing in Sunday's landslide,
which blocked nearly one mile of road between Chicaman and San Cristobal
Verapaz, said Hugo Arbizu, spokesman for the national disaster agency.

The tragedy occurred when travelers got out of a truck Sunday and
started to walk across a path below the part of the road blocked by the
previous landslide, Arbizu told CNN. Around 11:30 a.m., more than 10
tons of dirt and rock fell on them.

After the previous landslide, geologists declared that stretch of road a
high-risk area, and nearby residents reported hearing occasional
rumblings. Any type of travel over that segment had been prohibited,
Arbizu said.

Video footage on CNN affiliate Canal 7 TV showed rocks and dirt
continuing to slide down a mountain after the disaster.

The search was called off at 6 p.m. Sunday because of concerns over more
landslides, but it resumed at 6 a.m. Monday, Arbizu said.

Guatemalan Vice President Rafael Espada toured the site, accompanied by
Alejandro Maldonado, head of the national agency for the reduction of
disasters, and Health Minister Celso Cerezo.

Espalda said the government would help families with funeral costs, but
it was difficult to identify some bodies because they were so badly
mutilated, the Prensa Libre newspaper said.

Makeshift morgues were set up nearby, with the expectation that more
bodies will be found, Cerezo said.

The first rescuers on the scene described the devastation, even as they
watched for further slides.

"When we arrived, we found a dramatic scene with many people crying for
family members buried when they tried to cross," Jorge Bol of the
volunteer fire department in San Cristobal Verapaz told the newspaper.

Photos on the Prensa Libre Web site showed family members and others
helping rescue crews carry victims out of the disaster area and bodies
lined up behind an ambulance.



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