GUATEMALA CITY (AP):
GUATEMALAN COMMUNITIES buried under rivers of mud will be abandoned and declared graveyards, leaders of the worst-hit towns said yesterday, as they stopped most efforts to dig out the rotted bodies of what they fear to be about 250 people still encased in the mud flows.
Scores of foreign tourists were evacuated on foot and by helicopter from towns cut off by mudslides on the shores of Lake Atitlan, after a week of intense rain linked to Hurricane Stan that left more than 640 confirmed deaths and hundreds of missing in Central America and Mexico.
"Panabaj will no longer exist," said Mayor Diego Esquina, referring to the Maya lakeside hamlet covered by a half-mile wide mudflow as much as 15 to 20 feet (four to six metres) thick. "We are asking that it be declared a cemetery. We are tired, we no longer know where to dig."
"The bodies are so rotted that they can no longer be identified. They will only bring disease," said Esquina, who noted that about 250 people are missing in Panabaj, part of the national total of 338 missing.
HALLOWED GROUND
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.
Nationwide in Guatemala, 519 bodies have been recovered and reburied, while 338 more were reported missing by federal authorities. Vice-President Eduardo Stein said steps were being taken to give towns "legal permission to declare the buried areas cemeteries" as "a sanitary measure."
