Crews work to recover bodies

May 31, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

GUATEMALA CITY

Flooding and landslides from the season’s first tropical storm have killed at least 142 people and left thousands homeless in Central America, officials said Monday.

Dozens of people are still missing, 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 officials reported 118 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.”

In the tiny village of Parajbei, a slide smothered three homes and killed 11 people.

“It was raining really hard, and there was a huge noise,” said Vicente Azcaj, 56, who ran outside and saw that a hill had crumbled. “Now everyone is afraid that the same will happen to their homes.”

Volunteers from nearby villages worked nonstop since Sunday to recover the bodies in Parajbei, and on Monday they found the last two: brothers, 4 and 8 years old, who were buried under tons of dirt, rocks and trees.

As a thank-you, rescuers got a plate of rice and beans from the mayor of nearby Santa Apolonia.

“It’s a small thing, but it comes from the heart,” Tulio Nunez told them through a translator.

In all, some 110,000 people were evacuated in Guatemala.