El Salvador floods, mudslides kill 124

VERAPAZ, El Salvador – Mud and boulders loosened by heavy rains swept down a volcano and partly buried a small town Sunday, swallowing up homes as flooding and landslides across El Salvador killed at least 124 people, authorities said.

Hundreds of soldiers, police and residents dug through rock and debris in Verapaz looking for another 60 people missing from the mudslide, which struck before dawn Sunday while residents were still in their beds.

Almost 7,000 people saw their homes damaged by landslides or cut off by floodwaters following three days of downpours from a low-pressure system indirectly related to Hurricane Ida.

President Mauricio Funes declared a national emergency and said he would work with the United Nations to evaluate the extent of the damage.

“The images that we have seen today are of a devastated country,” Funes said. He called the damages incalculable.

El Salvador’s Civil Protection agency raised the death toll to 124 late Sunday, with another 60 people missing.

Some of the worst damage was in Verapaz, where mudslides covered cars and boulders two yards wide blocked streets.

The rain loosened a flow of mud and rocks that descended from nearby Chichontepec volcano and buried homes and streets in Verapaz, a town of about 3,000 located 30 miles east of San Salvador, the capital.

“It was terrible. The rocks came down on top of the houses and split them in two, and split the pavement,” recalled Manuel Melendez, 61.

“I heard people screaming all around.”