HUNDREDS OF people were last night feared to have died after a landslide devastated a town in a remote mountainous area of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Torrential rain loosened a hillside and sent tonnes of earth crashing down on to parts of the town of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec early yesterday.
The mud and rock broke loose at around 4am and engulfed between 100 and 300 houses where families were sleeping, said state governor Ulises Ruiz. “There could be 500 or 600 people [dead]. Perhaps 1,000,” he told Televisa.
Survivors were struggling to dig out neighbours, Donato Vargas, a resident, told AP by satellite phone. “There is a lot of mud. We can’t even see the homes, we can’t hear shouts, we can’t hear anything,” he said.
The avalanche swept houses 400m downhill along with cars and animals, said Mr Vargas. “We were all sleeping and all I heard was a loud noise and when I left the house I saw that the hill had fallen. We were left without electricity, without telephone and we couldn’t help them. There was no way to move the mud.” Mr Vargas said he contacted the governor on the town’s satellite phone but eight hours after the slide no rescue crews had reached the area. “There is no way to communicate. The roads are shut down. All we have is this satellite phone,” he said.
Army, navy, marine and civil response teams with rescue dogs were scrambling to reach the town in treacherous weather. Two Puma helicopters were unable to land and had to return to Oaxaca airport. “We are sending machinery, there are soldiers from the Mexican army, the navy, state police, ambulances, health personnel and rescue workers,” said the governor. “We hope to get there in time to rescue some of the people who have been buried.”
The first rescuers to arrive on the scene reported eight confirmed dead but the toll was expected to rise sharply once digging equipment arrived. Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, with a population of about 9,000, is only about 130km from the state capital of Oaxaca but largely unpaved winding mountain roads make it a three-hour drive even in normal conditions.
Fausto Martinez, a rescue worker, told Telesur broadcaster that the Oaxaca civil protection force had received a satellite phone call from a resident before dawn. “They said the mountain had collapsed and a lot of people were in their homes because of the hour. It’s been difficult to get in by road so we are preparing specialist teams to get in by air.” Survivors from the landslide were taken to temporary refuges, he said.
A picturesque colonial town, Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec has a population of about 9,000, mostly Mixe Indians. Another landslide in the nearby community of Villa Hidalgo left hundreds homeless and killed at least one person.
Mexico is suffering one of its most intense rainy seasons in living memory. Flooding has forced thousands from their homes across southern Mexico in the past week. So far about 20 people have died in floods that began in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and spread to the state of Chiapas at the weekend. In the past week separate storm systems have drenched the Caribbean, central America, Venezuela and Colombia, washing away homes, blocking roads and forcing thousands to seek refuge. About 30 people were buried on Monday by a landslide northwest of Bogota, Colombia’s capital.
The alarm was raised in Oaxaca on Monday when at least four rivers broke their banks. Local authorities set up shelters to house hundreds of people whose houses were flooded in the south of the state. Tabata Anton, an official at a technical college based in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, said by phone from the state capital that blocked roads had forced teachers trying to get to the town on Monday to turn around. There had been no communication yesterday with the institute’s approximately 60 students from the town.
– ( Guardianservice)