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Dozens dead in El Salvador flooding
09.11.09
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Mud and boulders loosened by days of heavy rain have partly buried a small town, swallowing up homes as flooding and landslides across El Salvador killed at least 124 people.
Hundreds of soldiers, police and residents dug through debris in Verapaz looking for another 60 people missing from the mudslide, which struck before dawn on Sunday while residents were still in their beds.
Almost 7,000 people saw their homes damaged by landslides or cut off by floodwaters following three days of downpours from a weather system indirectly related to Hurricane Ida, which brushed Mexico's Cancun resort on Sunday before steaming into the Gulf of Mexico.
Matias Mendoza, 26, was at home with his wife Claudia and their year-old son, Franklin, when the earth began moving.
"It was about two in the morning when the rain started coming down harder, and the earth started shaking," Mr Mendoza recalled.
"I warned my wife and grabbed my son, and all of a sudden we heard a sound. The next thing I knew I was lying among parts of the walls of my house. A few minutes later, I found my wife and my son in the middle of the rubble, and, thank God, we're alive."
El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes declared a national emergency and said he would work with the United Nations to evaluate the extent of the damage.
"The images that we have seen today are of a devastated country," Mr Funes said, calling the damages "incalculable".
El Salvador's Civil Protection agency raised the death toll to 124 late on Sunday night, with another 60 people missing.
It didn't break down the deaths by location, but under the previous toll of 94, officials had listed 61 deaths in San Salvador, 23 in San Vicente province, including 10 in the town of Verapaz, and the remaining fatalities spread across the country.
