Mayan Towns to Be Declared Mass Graves
By Mark Stevensen
More than 640 people died and hundreds more were missing across Central America and southern Mexico after a week of rains. In hardest-hit Guatemala, 519 bodies had been recovered and reburied. Some 338 were listed as missing.
"Panabaj will no longer exist," said Mayor Diego Esquina, referring to the Mayan lakeside hamlet in Guatemala covered by a half-mile-wide mudflow as much as 15 to 20 feet deep. "We are asking that it be declared a cemetery. We are tired. We no longer know where to dig."
Many of the missing apparently will simply be declared dead, and the ground they rest in declared hallowed ground. About 160 bodies have been recovered in Panabaj and nearby towns, and most have been buried in mass graves.
Vice President Eduardo Stein said steps were being taken to give towns "legal permission to declare the buried areas" as hallowed ground.
Attention turned to aiding thousands of hungry or injured survivors as helicopters - including U.S. Blackhawks and Chinooks - fanned out across Guatemala to evacuate the wounded and bring supplies to more than 100 communities still cut off by mudslides and flooding.
On Sunday, as aid workers reached the most remote areas, they learned that a mudslide had buried a storm shelter in the town of Tacana, about 12 miles from the Mexican border, where about 100 people had taken refuge from rains and flooding.
Thirty-seven bodies have been dug from the shelter since the mudslide hit Wednesday, and 52 people were still missing, said Jorge Hernandez of the country's civil defense agency.
Thousands of hungry and injured survivors mobbed helicopters delivering the first food aid to communities that have been cut off from the outside world for nearly a week.
Some communities along Guatemala's Pacific coast have been cut off for almost a week, and when aid helicopters finally arrived on Sunday, hungry and desperate villagers grabbed wildly at bags of flour, rice and sugar.
As some foreign tourists worked shoulder to shoulder with Mayans in traditional cotton blouses and broad sashes to dig for missing victims, others hiked around mud-choked roads or boarded government helicopters in the second day of evacuations from the area around Lake Atitlan.
Helicopters went to the nearby town of San Andres Semetabaj to fly out an estimated 20 Scandinavians trapped since mudslides cut off the area several days ago. About 50 more tourists were hiking out of the lakeside town of Panajachel.
"We got about 400 (tourists) out last night, and were expecting more today," said Solomon Reyes of Guatemala's Tourism Ministry.
In some areas the arrival of the Guatemalan military only complicated matters. Villagers in Panabaj refused to allow in the army because of memories of a 1990 massacre there during the country's 36-year civil war.
But U.S. military helicopters from Joint Task Force Bravo based at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras joined the rescue efforts with a half-dozen Blackhawk helicopters and one Chinook transport helicopter, running flights through dense clouds and heavy fog.
"We're still in search-and-rescue mode," said Army Maj. Bob Schmidt. "We're in the saving life and limb thought process."
The U.S. craft delivered some medical supplies and personnel and evacuated children needing medical care.
In El Salvador, authorities reported 71 deaths from the rains, after two people where swept away by flood waters in San Salvador on Saturday.
The rest of the dead were scattered throughout Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica and southern Mexico.
Mexican President Vicente Fox visited devastated Chiapas state Sunday as floodwaters began to recede.
"The important thing is that the worst is over," Fox said. "Now comes the reconstruction."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to Original
Anger at Slow Aid to Guatemala Mudslide Village
Reuters
Sunday 09 October 2005
Panabaj, Guatemala - Aid trickled into a Guatemalan village devastated by a mudslide that killed some 1,400 people, and Maya Indian residents complained on Sunday the government was far too slow to react to the tragedy.
Peasants from neighboring villages brought clothing for the victims, rowing canoes across Lake Atitlan to Panabaj. The village was buried under a deadly slick of mud, rocks and trees that slid down a volcano after rains from Hurricane Stan.
A federal deputy from western Guatemala said 300 people had died in another mudslide in the town of Tacana, near the Mexican border, but that could not be confirmed.
In Panabaj, Spanish firemen arrived to look for bodies under a quagmire that is up to 40 feet deep in places and Guatemalan soldiers brought water in a truck.
But government help was little and late, local officials said. They were angry that President Oscar Berger had not visited the village four days after one of Latin America's biggest tragedies of recent years struck.
"I feel totally sad, morale is very low. We want to see the president, we want to see him here," said Diego Esquina, mayor of Santiago Atitlan municipality, which runs Panabaj.
Stan's rains triggered the mudslide as Panabaj's residents slept early on Wednesday. Mud-covered roads prevented rescuers from reaching the site for two days.
No senior government official went to the village and the mayor said racism against the Mayas might be to blame.
"It's like they are giving a message that it is because we are indigenous. That is the point. A lot of my people are saying it is because we are indigenous," Esquina said.
Santiago Atitlan was a hot spot during Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996. Years of abuses by soldiers helped leftist rebels recruit Indians in the town and tensions peaked in 1990 when drunken soldiers killed 13 locals.
Bean Supplies
A supply of beans, rice and pasta sent by the capital's city hall was handed out but peasants said the federal government was negligent.
"The government didn't send anything here. There is nothing," said Francisco Boron, 43, dressed in traditional calf-length white pants and carrying a machete.
Rescuers with hand tools struggled to find bodies in the brown grunge covering Panabaj and local officials said it would likely be left as a mass grave.
Firefighters poked long poles into the mud in search of victims but feared sinking into the quagmire themselves.
"It is very difficult. Most of the people are where the mud is thickest and we haven't been able to work there because of the danger," said firefighter Max Chiquito.
The fire department put the death toll at around 1,400 villagers and Esquina said between 1,000 and 1,500 had died. Only 76 bodies have been found.
The storm killed some 300 people elsewhere in Guatemala and 103 others in the rest of Central America and southern Mexico.
Julio Cesar Lopez, an opposition deputy from the western department of Huehuetenango, told Reuters some 300 people died on Thursday when a mudslide hit the town of Tacana, in the neighboring San Marcos region.
"I am in telephone contact with Tacana. People were using two churches as shelters but the hill fell down on top of them," said Lopez, of the Guatemalan Republican Front party.
Guatemalan newspaper reports said about 2,000 were missing in San Marcos and Defense Minister Carlos Aldana told Reuters the armed forces were trying to reach the stricken area.
"San Marcos is the place where, from today, we are giving most importance because it has not been dealt with at all due to the weather conditions and the road access." he said.
Southern Mexico was reeling from floods and the government said it would spend 20 billion pesos in emergency aid for victims to reconstruct stricken states.
"We are going to support everyone to recover their goods and rebuild their homes that were destroyed, to compensate agricultural producers for the loss of crops, and in finance plans for businesses," President Vicente Fox said.
Pope Benedict offered condolences for the hurricane victims during his weekly blessing in St. Peter's Square. "I ask the Lord for the eternal rest of the dead," he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------