Guatemala City – With food and water running out, governments in Central America and Mexico scrambled Friday to reach isolated areas devastated by a week of intense rain, with residents saying panic was starting to grow among survivors.
Mudslides and flooding exacerbated by Hurricane Stan have killed 258 people across the region, with Guatemala bearing the brunt of the damage and deaths.
Increasing fears Friday was a strong earthquake that rattled both Guatemala and El Salvador. The quake caused a rain- damaged highway bridge to collapse in Guatemala and also sent thousands of frightened Salvadoran residents into the streets.
There were no immediate reports of injuries from the quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 5.8. El Salvador Interior Minister Rene Figueroa urged residents to obey evacuation orders for high-risk areas.
The quake also forced officials to suspend their search for two coffee workers missing since Oct. 1 when the Ilamatepec volcano erupted about 40 miles west of the capital, San Salvador.
The earthquake struck before residents had even begun to recover from the five days of heavy rains, which included Hurricane Stan’s landfall Tuesday in Mexico’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz before it weakened into a tropical depression.
“We need food, clothing, medicine and help,” said Lucas Ajpus, a former firefighter coordinating rescue efforts in Santiago Atitlan, the Guatemalan city near landslides that hit four villages.
At least 50 bodies have been recovered, bringing Guatemala’s death toll to 160. Workers continued to search for more than 100 people still missing.
“There’s still a lot to be done, because two towns have disappeared completely,” Ajpus said.
In Pathulul, 30 miles away from Santiago Atitlan, creeks that normally stream down from the highlands had turned into raging rivers, cluttered with rocks, branches and chunks of debris.
Guatemalan officials organized an air-rescue squad of their own helicopters as well as those lent by the United States and neighboring Mexico. But poor weather prevented them from taking off until Friday.
