Hurricane Stan kills 162 in Mexico, Central America
Huge mudslides, flooding and torrential rains from Hurricane Stan have killed at least 162 people in Central America and southern Mexico, rescue workers said on Wednesday.
Relentless rain pounded mountain villages and urban shanty towns across the impoverished region, and hillsides collapsed under four days of downpours.
The death toll more than doubled on Wednesday when rivers burst their banks in southern Mexico, and emergency teams found dozens more victims buried under banks of mud in remote Guatemalan towns.
By the evening, the death toll in Guatemala stood at 79 people, but the government said that figure could rise. Unconfirmed reports said hundreds may have been killed in an isolated region in the west of the country.
Entire families were missing after a river of mud, trees and rocks descended on the hill town of Tecpan, west of the capital, destroying more than 30 flimsy homes.
“A lot of people could not get out,” said Samuel Cif, a local peasant.
Two dead children were found and villagers were too scared of more landslides to dig for other victims. Clothing, trees and the roofs of houses were strewn around and heavy rain still pounded the area.
The tragedy brought back memories of Hurricane Mitch, which killed some 10,000 people in 1998 in Central America, mainly in Honduras and Nicaragua, with mudslides and flooding.
Stan dumped half the amount of water on Guatemala in five days that Mitch brought in only three, meteorologists said.
More: alertnet.org
Stan Hits Central America and Mexico, 231 Deaths
The number of casualties because of hurricane Stan in Central America and Mexico has risen to 231.
Search and rescue teams in Guatemala have taken 40 bodies from the debris of a landslide caused by the hurricane and in a small coastal village 20 more people died in another landslide, reported the country’s civilian defense spokesman Benedicto Giron.
Along with the corpses found in Guatemala, the total number of hurricane victims is 231 including the death toll in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras and Mexico.
Source: zaman.com
Hurricane Stan leaves 231 dead in Central America, Mexico
Rescue workers in Guatemala said they pulled at least 40 bodies from a massive mudslide and found 20 more dead in a swollen river, raising to at least 231 the number of people killed from five days of pounding rains after Hurricane Stan hit Central America and Mexico.
Officials expected the death to toll to climb as they searched for more than 150 others who were missing following the landslide in Solola, a town close to Lake Atitlan, 100 kilometres west of the capital, Guatemala City.
Along the country's Pacific coast, the Nahualate
Actor Mel Gibson donates U.S.$1 million to Mexico's hurricane relief
Actor Mel Gibson, sporting a long beard and no socks, met with Mexican President Vicente Fox on Wednesday and donated US$1 million to help Mexico recover from Hurricane Stan.
Fox's office said Gibson asked to meet with Fox because he wanted to help after Hurricane Stan hit the Gulf state of Veracruz, where the actor is filming a movie.
The hurricane and related storms left more than 1,500 dead or missing in Central America and Mexico. Another storm, Hurricane Wilma, was expected to come close to hitting Mexico's Yucatan peninsula late
Central America, Mexico and Haiti: Floods from Hurricane Stan Emergency Appeal No. 05EA021
THIS EMERGENCY APPEAL SEEKS CHF 1,568,000 (USD 1,230,694 OR EUR 1,012,648) IN CASH, KIND, OR SERVICES TO ASSIST 10,250 FAMILIES (SOME 51,250 BENEFICIARIES) FOR 6 MONTHS
CHF 250,000 (USD 196,188 or EUR 161,463) has been allocated from the Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to begin relief operations in response to the floods. Unearmarked funds to reimburse the DREF are encouraged.
A separate appeal seeking CHF 487,000 for 21,000 people (4,200 families) for floods and volcanic activity in El Salvador was launched on 5 October 2005
The situation
Stan fading fast over Mexico
Once mighty Hurricane Stan "is now a rainmaker," and should weaken even more over the high terrain of southeastern Mexico, forecasters said Tuesday night.
At 10 p.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said the broad center of what was just Tropical Depression Stan was over the state Oaxaca, Mexico.
Maximum sustained winds were near 35 mph, and Stan was moving southwestward near 3 mph. "Little motion (movement) is expected before dissipation," the center said.
Stan was expected to produce 5 to 10 inches of rain over portions of southeastern Mexico. The center warned of possible life-threatening flash
Hurricane Stan hits Mexico
Hurricane Stan slammed Mexico's Gulf coast Tuesday with high winds and heavy rain that closed Mexico's main oil ports before returning to a tropical storm.
Stan unleashed high waves, floods and mudslides, prompting Mexico to consider evacuating several thousand people from the state of Veracruz, The Australian newspaper reported.
State oil monopoly Pemex evacuated 270 workers at five oil exploration platforms in advance of Stan, which killed 35 people in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras during the weekend as a tropical storm.
It was unclear whether the Mexican oil port closures at Dos Bocas, Cayo Arcos and Coatzacoalcos
Mexico govt sees cost of rebuilding economy after Hurricane Stan at 1.85 bln usd
President Vicente Fox estimated the cost of rebuilding the economies of the Mexican states hit by Tropical Storm Stan at 20 bln pesos (1.85 bln usd).
Stan slammed ashore as a hurricane in Mexico's state of Veracruz on Tuesday.
Seven states in Mexico's south -- the poorest region of the country -- were affected by the storm. At least 24 Mexicans were confirmed dead.
An estimated 2 mln people were affected by the storm, with 300,000 evacuated to emergency shelters and other temporary housing.
Source: forbes.com
Mexico leftist urges campaign cash for Stan victims
The leftist leading the race for Mexico's presidency urged political parties on Thursday to cut spending on elections next year and instead donate cash to victims of a hurricane that hit southern areas.
It was the latest in a series of gestures from Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, which have won him support from millions of Mexico's poor.
Lopez Obrador said his Party of the Democratic Revolution would ask Mexico's electoral watchdog IFE to reduce the amount it will spend on the election by 10 percent.
"We would be talking about
Hurricane Wilma heads for Gulf of Mexico
Hurricane Wilma strengthened in the Caribbean Tuesday and headed toward the Gulf of Mexico, where it seemed likely to spare battered U.S. oil and gas fields but threatened storm-weary Florida.
The rapidly intensifying storm also menaced Honduras and Nicaragua with up to 10 inches of rain, compounding the woes of Central America. More than 1,000 people in Guatemala and El Salvador were killed by landslides and floods triggered by Hurricane Stan this month.
Wilma was expected to strengthen into a major hurricane with winds of more than 110 mph by Thursday and its likely
Flooding kills more than 160 in southern Mexico, Central America
Rescue workers were searching for victims of a mudslide near a volcano-ringed lake popular with tourists in Guatemala, as the death toll from flooding sparked by heavy rains climbed to 79 across this country and 62 in neighboring El Salvador.
Downpours have battered much of Central America and southern Mexico since the weekend, and it was still raining in most areas, causing rivers to overflow and carry off homes and people and huge chunks of land to give way, burying everything in their path.
Forecasters at the U.S. Hurricane Center said
