Rescue workers and soldiers were yesterday struggling to reach isolated villages across Central America and southern Mexico cut off or destroyed by Hurricane Stan and related storms.
At least 162 people died throughout the region, most buried under mudslides or drowned by rivers converted into raging brown floods. Many thousands more were holed up in shelters. Authorities pleaded with people to put life before property and head for safety.
Stan, a category one hurricane, entered Mexico from the Atlantic on Tuesday, moving slowly southwest across the country and triggering storms further south in Central America. It was downgraded to a tropical depression on Wednesday.
While the force of the storms has not been dramatic compared with the powerful winds packed by Hurricane Katrina and Rita in the United States, they have unleashed large quantities of rain capable of devastating this largely poverty-stricken region. The rain is forecast to continue for the rest of the week, raising fears of further landslides and floods.
Greenpeace blamed rampant deforestation for exacerbating the disaster, and called on governments to do more to protect woods and mangroves.
Although not directly in Stan's path, Central America has been the hardest hit. Guatemala's government said that 79 people had died and the total was likely to rise. The area around Lake Atitlan has been one of the hardest hit, with rescuers digging out 15 bodies so far.
Whole families were unaccounted for in the hill town of Tecpan to the west after more than 30 houses were buried under mud, tree trunks and rocks. Villagers told Reuters they feared provoking another landslide if they dug too deep to search for bodies. There were also rumours that hundreds had been buried under banks of mud in a remote western region that rescuers had yet to reach.
At least 62 people died in neighbouring El Salvador, with some 40,000 waiting out the rain in shelters. The government warned of forced evacuations of vulnerable areas. Among those already ordered to move were residents of Santa Tecla, just outside the capital. Officials are concerned that parts of a mountain alongside the town could collapse, as it did during an earthquake in January 2001.
The authorities said some 70% of this tiny country has been damaged by the storms, with many roads blocked, including the Panamerican Highway, complicating access to remote areas. Additional worries were caused by the increased activity of the Santa Ana volcano, forcing authorities to evacuate the area.
Nine people were reported dead in Nicaragua, among them six Ecuadoreans heading for the United States in a boat.
The storms also reportedly killed four people in Honduras and one in Costa Rica.
For Central America, the storms brought back memories of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 that killed some 10,000 people. Mitch was also not particularly powerful, with the heavy downpours over days proving far more destructive than the winds.
Most of the damage in southern Mexico, as Stan passed by, has been concentrated in the states of Veracruz and Chiapas, with 13 people reported dead. Television pictures showed people running for their lives as the river Coatan that runs through the city of Tapachula carried away fridges, tables and chairs from collapsed houses. Local authorities reported more than 2,000 homes destroyed.