Flood toll mounting in Central America

GUATEMALA CITY – Rescue workers in Guatemala pulled dozens of bodies from a massive mudslide and from a swollen river Thursday, raising to 246 the number of people killed from five days of pounding rains in Central America and Mexico.

Officials expected the death to toll to climb as they searched for more than 150 others who were missing following the landslide in Solola, a town close to Lake Atitlan, 60 miles west of the capital, Guatemala City.

Along the country’s Pacific coast, the Nahualate River broke from its banks, creating a new outlet to the sea and killing at least 20 people from a small, seaside village, navy officials said.

There was joy amid the tragedy. Claudio Manchinel, from Iztapa in coastal, southern Guatemala, was forced to walk for hours through rain and mud with his pregnant wife, Leticia. Upon reaching a highway, the couple stopped an ambulance, which took them to a naval base, where their son Claudio was born Wednesday.

Manchinel said the flooding reminded him of Hurricane Mitch, which killed at least 9,000 people throughout Central America in 1998.

The recovery of bodies pushed the number killed in the region to 246, including 14 victims earlier this week in Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica, and 13 victims who died in three southern Mexican states.

President Oscar Berger said Thursday night that 134 people had been killed across Guatemala and nearly 31,500 residents evacuated. Emergency response officials said the president’s tally did not include the 20 or more people killed by the overflowing Nahualate, meaning the total figure in Guatemala had climbed to at least 154.