MEXICO: Mexican soldiers dig for Chiapas mudslide victims

Families are torn apart in devastating Chiapas mudslide as the government starts pumping water out of Tabasco. Mexican soldiers dug on Tuesday (November 06) for survivors from a giant mudslide that buried a village when torrential rains caused a soaked hillside to collapse. Sixteen people were missing in Juan de Grijalva, hit by a wall of water and mud on Sunday night when tonnes of earth and rock tumbled into a dammed-up river. The mudslide was over half a mile (1 km) long and smothered houses. It left a huge brown stain on green tropical hills in Chiapas state. The army flew rescue teams to the remote village. An unidentified mudslide victim, said that families have been torn apart. Many are missing. "They rescued some boys, they had been buried up to their waists. Their parents and grandparents are missing," he said. The rains that triggered the mudslide had already flooded Tabasco state down river, forcing some 800,000 people from their homes in one of Mexico's biggest natural disasters of recent years. Much of Tabasco was still under water after the floods last week. Governor Andres Granier put the economic cost of the disaster at 50 billion pesos ($4.7 billion USD). Despite the destruction and dramatic images of houses flooded up to roof levels over huge areas, only three people have been reported dead in Tabasco, an oil-producing state. The federal government was due to begin pumping water from state capital Villahermosa, home to half a million people, on Tuesday but most residents are unlikely to return for up to three months. Residents have not been allowed to return to their houses to check on their belongings, as army troops and federal police continue to guard lonely and vulnerable areas to prevent houses from being robbed. We wanted to see what was left and what we could use, of the few things left, but that was not possible," said flood victim Alvaro Ortega. Many of the areas worst hit by the flooding have been turned from woodland into farmland in recent decades, removing forests that could have reduced the effects of the flooding.

ITN Source | November 7, 2007

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