News of extensive flooding and mudslides, accompanied by lack of communication, raises fears that the death toll in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and southern Mexico could be a great deal higher than the 450 reported following Hurricane Stan"s havoc last weekend.
In Guatemala, the president has asked Congress to declare a state of emergency because entire villages have been destroyed by the mudslides and flash floods, and many people are still missing.
El Salvador likewise fears that more people than the reported 64 have died, because the 54,000 evacuated throughout the country will have difficulty returning to their towns because “The ground is saturated and we could have more tragedies,” Salvadoran Red Cross spokesman Carlos Lopez Mendoza told reporters.
Mexico too is experiencing complete cut-off from communities in flooded regions, and emergency teams bringing food, water, blankets and medical help are unable to reach them due to the existing flooded roads.
Local television stations in these countries show soaking wet victims begging their governments to help them find missing loved ones and recover what may be left of their belongings.
Source: plenglish.com
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
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
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
Death count from Hurricane Stan rises in Mexico, Central America
The death count from Hurricane Stan continued to rise in Mexico and Central America as rescue workers reached towns cut off by massive floods and mudslides.
The storm, which churned into Mexico's Gulf Coast Oct. 4 before unleashing heavy rains onto much of Central America, left more than 600 confirmed dead and more than 1,000 more missing in the region, though relief workers said the number could be much higher and warned that residents could be dogged by disease and food shortages for months.
The storm slammed into the Mexican
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
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
U.S. flights to Mexico fail to cut migrant deaths
A U.S. government program that returns illegal immigrants to Mexico by flying them deep into the country is ineffective at reducing the number of deaths in the Arizona desert, analysts said on Wednesday.
The Interior Repatriation Program of daily charter flights from Tucson to Mexico City and Guadalajara was implemented in 2004 to cut deaths in the summer months.
Instead of dropping the migrants near the border as is usually done, the program flies them hundreds of miles inside Mexico. The idea was to deter migrants from immediately reattempting to cross the border via
Mexico, Central America floods, mudslides kill 162
Raging brown floodwater and banks of mud covered chunks of Central America and southern Mexico on Thursday after days of torrential rain and mudslides killed at least 162 across the region.
Rescue workers battled to get to remote villages, where hillsides have collapsed under the downpour, and thousands of evacuees from urban shantytowns hunkered down in emergency shelters as rain continued to pound the region.
The death toll soared on Wednesday as rivers swollen by rain from Hurricane Stan burst their banks in southern Mexico, and emergency teams found dozens of bodies buried under banks
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
