Guatemala tropical depression udpate
Over this past weekend, a tropical depression passed over Guatemala dumping a large amount of rainfall. The most heavily affected areas are the Western Highlands, with numerous mudslides blocking major highways. Presently, the Panamerican Highway which carries travelers from Guatemala City to Lake Atitlan, is closed.
Near term forecasts for further rainfall may exacerbate this situation, and Viaventure has currently suspended all non-essential vehicular travel into the Western Highlands, including Lake Atitlan and Chichicastenango, until Monday September 13.
"We are concerned that even if the roads are re-opened in the next day or two, there is a chance that vehicular travel across these affected routes could be hazardous or may leave clients stranded on the other side of mudslides that could occur during the day," stated a Viaventure spokesperson.
Source: Global Travel Industry News
6 former Guatemala soldiers linked to Mexican cartel
Sep 6, 2010 8:15 PM By Sapa-AFP
Mexican officials said Monday they were holding six former Guatemalan soldiers suspected of links to the Zetas, a drug cartel blamed for a wave of violence and considered one of the country’s most dangerous syndicates.
The federal prosecutor’s office said the six were being transferred to a prison in the eastern state of Veracruz after their links to the Zetas were confirmed.
Authorities said the men had originally been detained as illegal immigrants, and then escaped from an immigration centre in an operation believed to have been organized by the drug cartel. They were recaptured on April 22.
Much of the violence in the north-eastern Tamaulipas state is blamed on the Zetas, a brutal, well-trained group of former elite Mexican army commandos that the US government calls the most dangerous organized crime syndicate in Mexico.
The Zetas emerged in the late 1990s as hired guns for the powerful leader of the Gulf cartel, Osiel Cardenas.
The crime syndicate is believed to be responsible for the slaughtering of 72 illegal immigrants last month.
Source: Times Live
Further landslides hit Guatemala
5 September 2010 Last updated at 15:47 ET Help
Emergency services in Guatemala say up to 100 people are feared to have been buried by landslides on the main highway linking it with Mexico.
The fire department said dozens of people were trying to dig a bus out of a mudslide when a second one engulfed them.
Across Guatemala, 36 people have been confirmed dead in floods and landslides caused by heavy rain. Russell Trott reports.
Click here for more information and pictures "Click"
Emergency services in Guatemala say up to 100 people are feared to have been buried by landslides on the main highway linking it with Mexico.
The fire department said dozens of people were trying to dig a bus out of a mudslide when a second one engulfed them.
Across Guatemala, 36 people have been confirmed dead in floods and landslides caused by heavy rain. Russell Trott reports.
Click here for more information and pictures "Click"
Toll from deadly Guatemala landslides rises to 44
SOLOLA, Guatemala (AFP) - – The death toll from multiple landslides in Guatemala rose to 44, officials said Monday as rescuers took advantage of a brief window of good weather to search for victims and survivors.
At least 16 people were still missing after a series of landslides, mudslides and wall collapses that followed weeks of heavy rain in the impoverished and mountainous Central American nation, emergency officials said.
There are "43,043 people at risk, 11,495 have been evacuated, 9,160 are in shelters and 56 people have been injured," a statement from Guatemala's National Coordination for Disaster Reduction (Conared) said.
"It's a national tragedy," President Alvaro Colom said as he visited a site where up to 40 people were thought to have been buried alive in a mudslide.
"This weekend alone we have seen damage comparable to what we experienced with Agatha," he added, referring to a tropical storm in May that killed 165 Guatemalans and left thousands homeless.
After a pause overnight as new rains rolled in, rescue crews resumed work at 6:00 am local time (1200 GMT), said Cesar Aguirre, a spokesman for emergency services.
"We hope that the rains let up a bit, and allow us to work," he told AFP.
The rescue effort has been hampered by continuing bad weather associated with the region's rainy season, with operations halting during downpours to ensure workers are not at risk from new landslides.
"It is a very painful thing that poor people end up being the ones hurt by natural disasters," Colom added, urging people only to use the main highway if they had no other option "because there are landslides all over the place."
Conared chief Alejandro Maldonado said that the torrential rains had flooded many homes and left infrastructure including key roads unusable.
And the threat posed by the landslides was not over, with forecasters predicting more rain later Monday.
Late Sunday, a fresh mudslide in northern Guatemala killed one person and injured eight, including two children.
"Top priority at present is dealing with this emergency," Colom said as he toured the devastation and put damages, in one of the poorest countries in the Americas, as high as 500 million dollars.
On Sunday, rescuers dug nine bodies out of a 300-meter (1,000-foot) deep ravine off the main Pan-American Highway, west of the capital Guatemala City.
Fire service spokesman Cecilio Chacaj told AFP some 40 people were believed to have buried there as they tried to help the occupants of five vehicles and a bus swept into the abyss by a previous landslide.
Ten people were killed in a separate incident on Saturday when a bus on the main highway was buried near the town of Chimaltenango. Rescuers managed to unearth 20 survivors.
A landslide also buried a family of four inside their house in the western region of Quetzaltenango, while 13 more people were killed in separate incidents around the country.
In Nahuala municipality, rescuers in bright orange uniforms used shovels, hoes and their hands to unearth the corpses of victims. Among the dead was Manuel Sohon, whose uncle Manuel Ajtzalam wept as he identified him.
Conared said the torrential downpours had caused almost 200 landslides, wall collapses and mudslides across the country.
Three regions in the country's south, Escuintla, Retalhuleu and Suchitepequez, were placed on red alert.
With more heavy rain forecast, authorities have closed part of the Pan-American Highway.
Colom warned he had little funds left to cope with the disaster as the country was still struggling to recover from tropical storm Agatha, which hit the nation in May.
Central America has been lashed by an unusually fierce rainy season this year. The recent bad weather has killed 55 people in Honduras, at least 40 in Nicaragua, nine in El Salvador and three in Costa Rica.
The downpours have come ahead of what is traditionally the worst part of the rainy season, which lasts until October 30.
At least 16 people were still missing after a series of landslides, mudslides and wall collapses that followed weeks of heavy rain in the impoverished and mountainous Central American nation, emergency officials said.
There are "43,043 people at risk, 11,495 have been evacuated, 9,160 are in shelters and 56 people have been injured," a statement from Guatemala's National Coordination for Disaster Reduction (Conared) said.
"It's a national tragedy," President Alvaro Colom said as he visited a site where up to 40 people were thought to have been buried alive in a mudslide.
"This weekend alone we have seen damage comparable to what we experienced with Agatha," he added, referring to a tropical storm in May that killed 165 Guatemalans and left thousands homeless.
After a pause overnight as new rains rolled in, rescue crews resumed work at 6:00 am local time (1200 GMT), said Cesar Aguirre, a spokesman for emergency services.
"We hope that the rains let up a bit, and allow us to work," he told AFP.
The rescue effort has been hampered by continuing bad weather associated with the region's rainy season, with operations halting during downpours to ensure workers are not at risk from new landslides.
"It is a very painful thing that poor people end up being the ones hurt by natural disasters," Colom added, urging people only to use the main highway if they had no other option "because there are landslides all over the place."
Conared chief Alejandro Maldonado said that the torrential rains had flooded many homes and left infrastructure including key roads unusable.
And the threat posed by the landslides was not over, with forecasters predicting more rain later Monday.
Late Sunday, a fresh mudslide in northern Guatemala killed one person and injured eight, including two children.
"Top priority at present is dealing with this emergency," Colom said as he toured the devastation and put damages, in one of the poorest countries in the Americas, as high as 500 million dollars.
On Sunday, rescuers dug nine bodies out of a 300-meter (1,000-foot) deep ravine off the main Pan-American Highway, west of the capital Guatemala City.
Fire service spokesman Cecilio Chacaj told AFP some 40 people were believed to have buried there as they tried to help the occupants of five vehicles and a bus swept into the abyss by a previous landslide.
Ten people were killed in a separate incident on Saturday when a bus on the main highway was buried near the town of Chimaltenango. Rescuers managed to unearth 20 survivors.
A landslide also buried a family of four inside their house in the western region of Quetzaltenango, while 13 more people were killed in separate incidents around the country.
In Nahuala municipality, rescuers in bright orange uniforms used shovels, hoes and their hands to unearth the corpses of victims. Among the dead was Manuel Sohon, whose uncle Manuel Ajtzalam wept as he identified him.
Conared said the torrential downpours had caused almost 200 landslides, wall collapses and mudslides across the country.
Three regions in the country's south, Escuintla, Retalhuleu and Suchitepequez, were placed on red alert.
With more heavy rain forecast, authorities have closed part of the Pan-American Highway.
Colom warned he had little funds left to cope with the disaster as the country was still struggling to recover from tropical storm Agatha, which hit the nation in May.
Central America has been lashed by an unusually fierce rainy season this year. The recent bad weather has killed 55 people in Honduras, at least 40 in Nicaragua, nine in El Salvador and three in Costa Rica.
The downpours have come ahead of what is traditionally the worst part of the rainy season, which lasts until October 30.
Volcano danger for Guatemala
Guatemala warns of volcano danger
(CNN) -- Authorities in Guatemala say they've detected an increase in vibration inside a volcano that killed three people when it erupted in May.
Researchers recently detected "an increase in internal vibration" at the Pacaya volcano, about 18 miles (30 kilometers) south of Guatemala City. The increase could cause further eruptions, according to a statement from CONRED, an emergency agency of the Guatemalan government.
Seismologists have not ruled out a complete eruption that could, depending on the wind direction, bring ash and soot to the capital.
An eruption of the volcano in May killed three people and shut down the international airport in Guatemala City.
Researchers recently detected "an increase in internal vibration" at the Pacaya volcano, about 18 miles (30 kilometers) south of Guatemala City. The increase could cause further eruptions, according to a statement from CONRED, an emergency agency of the Guatemalan government.
Seismologists have not ruled out a complete eruption that could, depending on the wind direction, bring ash and soot to the capital.
An eruption of the volcano in May killed three people and shut down the international airport in Guatemala City.
By the CNN Wire Staff
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cnnAuthor = "By the CNN Wire Staff";
Mayan Tomb Found in Guatemala
Mayan King's Tomb Discovered in Guatemala
ScienceDaily (July 17, 2010) — A well-preserved tomb of an ancient Mayan king has been discovered in Guatemala by a team of archaeologists led by Brown University's Stephen Houston. The tomb is packed with carvings, ceramics, textiles, and the bones of six children, who may have been sacrificed at the time of the king's death.
The team uncovered the tomb, which dates from about 350 to 400 A.D., beneath the El Diablo pyramid in the city of El Zotz in May. The news was made public July 15 during a press conference in Guatemala City, hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, which authorized the work.
Before making the actual discovery, Houston said the team thought "something odd" was happening in the deposit they were digging. They knew a small temple had been built in front of a sprawling structure dedicated to the sun god, an emblem of Maya rulership. "When we sunk a pit into the small chamber of the temple, we hit almost immediately a series of 'caches' -- blood-red bowls containing human fingers and teeth, all wrapped in some kind of organic substance that left an impression in the plaster. We then dug through layer after layer of flat stones, alternating with mud, which probably is what kept the tomb so intact and airtight."
Before making the actual discovery, Houston said the team thought "something odd" was happening in the deposit they were digging. They knew a small temple had been built in front of a sprawling structure dedicated to the sun god, an emblem of Maya rulership. "When we sunk a pit into the small chamber of the temple, we hit almost immediately a series of 'caches' -- blood-red bowls containing human fingers and teeth, all wrapped in some kind of organic substance that left an impression in the plaster. We then dug through layer after layer of flat stones, alternating with mud, which probably is what kept the tomb so intact and airtight."
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