Guatemala City: At least 30 people died and about 600 were unaccounted for after a hillside collapsed on a town on the outskirts of Gautemala’s capital here.
Loosened by rain, tons of earth, rock and trees cascaded onto the town from the hillside above, flattening houses and trapping residents, who had gone home for the night, reported Reuters, adding that fears that hundreds more were trapped threaten to make the landslide one of the worst natural disasters to hit Central America in recent years.
More than 500 rescue workers, police, soldiers and desperate residents are searching for survivors.
Many families have reported receiving text messages from people they believed to still be trapped more than 24 hours after the landslide struck the village of El Cambray II in the municipality of Santa Catarina Pinula.
ANI