Central America floods, mudslides kill 131
More than 110,000 in Guatemala flee as first storm of season lashes region
The Associated Press
updated 12:35 p.m. CT, Mon., May 31, 2010

GUATEMALA CITY - Flooding and landslides from the season's first tropical storm have killed at least 131 people in Central America, officials said Monday.

Dozens are still missing, thousands have lost homes and emergency crews are struggling to reach isolated communities cut off by washed-out roads and collapsed bridges caused by Tropical Storm Agatha.

The sun emerged Monday in hardest-hit Guatemala, where official counts reported 108 dead and 53 missing. In the department of Chimaltenango — a province west of Guatemala City — landslides buried dozens of rural Indian communities and killed at least 60 people, Gov. Erick de Leon said.

"The department has collapsed," de Leon said. "There are a lot of dead people. The roads are blocked. The shelters are overflowing. We need water, food, clothes, blankets — but above all, money."

President Alvaro Colom said Sunday that during a single 12-hour period, 4.3 inches (10.8 centimeters) fell in Guatemala City's valley. In all some 110,000 people were evacuated in the country.

Thousands more have fled their homes in neighboring Honduras, where the death toll rose to 14 even as meteorologists predicted three more days of rain.

Two dams near the capital of Tegucigalpa overflowed into a nearby river, and officials warned people to stay away from swollen waterways.

"The risk is enormous," Mayor Ricardo Alvarez said.

In El Salvador, at least 140 landslides have been reported and 11,000 people were evacuated. The death toll was nine, President Mauricio Funes said.

Officials warned that the Acelhuate River, which cuts through San Salvador, was running at dangerously high levels and threatened to spill over into the capital's streets.

Agatha made landfall near the Guatemala-Mexico border Saturday as a tropical storm with winds up to 45 mph (75 kph). It dissipated the following day over the mountains of western Guatemala.

The rising death toll is reminding nervous residents of Hurricane Mitch, which hovered over Central America for days in 1998, causing flooding and mudslides that killed nearly 11,000 people and left more than 8,000 missing and unaccounted for.

Rescue efforts in Guatemala have been complicated by a volcanic eruption Thursday near the capital that blanketed parts of the area with ash and closed the country's main airport. Officials are now allowing helicopters and propeller planes to take off, but commercial flights remain grounded.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37418183/ns/weather/

excerpt from an article by CNN:



In the northern part of Guatemala City, the downpour created a giant sinkhole that swallowed up a space larger than the area of a street intersection. Residents told CNN that a three-story building and a house fell into the hole.

A local newspaper reported that a private security guard was killed when the sinkhole opened up, but authorities had not confirmed the fatality. Residents said that a poor sewage drainage system underground was to blame for the sinkhole. A similar hole opened up nearby last year, they said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/ ... tml?hpt=T1

Ok so what is going on with all these frigging sink holes lately???

And why are they PERFECTLY ROUND

OLD MINE SHAFTS!! LOOK HOW SMOOTH THE SIDES ARE!!! MAYBE AN ERUPTION OF GAS FROM UNDER THE GROUND!! WEST WALLSEND IN AUSTRALIA IS BUILT ON A MASSIVE SPRING YOU HAVE TO WATCH WHERE YOU WALK THERE!!! YOU MIGHT FALL INTO THE SPRING AND BE LOST FOREVER!!!! WEST WALSEND(the whole SUBURB) WILL SINK!! WHEN WE DO NOT KNOW THE WEST WALLSEND CEMETERY HAS BEEN
CONDEMNED FROM THE COUNCIL (SORRY MY CAPS KEY IS STUCK #$&*@ KEYBOARD!!!) AND IF YOU WALK IN THERE YOU MAY FALL IN ALL THE HEADSTONES ARE SUNKEN AND EVERYTHING!!

West Wallsend Cemetery
Established in 1890, facing Mt Sugarloaf (AN INACTIVE SUPER VOLCANO), and set amongst native bushland, this cemetery is very popular with family historians and was the first established General cemetery in the Lake Macquarie area (having no specific religious denominations). It has many examples of marble & granite heritage headstones from the late 1800’s to this day. Generations of pioneer West Wallsend colliery families are buried in the cemetery.

On the left side of the cemetery as you walk through the gate, you will find a memorial for the burials of the unmarked gravesites for local infants and babies. There is no town water available; water is available from the tank, near the shelter at the entrance of the cemetery.

Please note that burials in this cemetery are only available for existing reservations.

Ashes can be interred in family graves or in the or in the niche (columbarium) wall located in the cemetery grounds.

THEY ARE STILL USING IT

MOUNT SUGARLOAF



HMM.. NOTHING SUSPICIOUS!!! WTF ARE LARGE ANTENNAS DOING THERE!!!