Mud buries town in El Salvador; 91 dead

Mud and boulders loosened by heavy rains have swept down a volcano and partly buried the town of Verapaz, swallowing up homes and cars as massive flooding killed 91 people throughout El Salvador.
Another five dozen people are missing. Hundreds of soldiers, police and residents dug through rock and debris looking for survivors from the mudslide, which struck before dawn on Sunday.
Almost 7,000 people saw their homes damaged, destroyed or cut off by floods and mudslides across the Central American nation. Rescue workers dug frantically for victims, but the mud flows were so high they nearly swallowed vehicles completely. Many streets were left blocked by boulders.
At least 23 people were killed in San Vicente province, where Verapaz is located, and at least 60 people were unaccounted for in the city located about 25 miles (40 kilometres) east of the capital, San Salvador.
Provincial Governor Manuel Castellanos said workers were struggling to clear roadways and power and water service had been knocked out. At least 300 houses in Verapaz were flooded after a river overflowed its bank, Red Cross spokesman Carlos Lopez Mendoza said. Verapaz resident Ernesto Romero described how he watched as a truck was swept away. "I looked from the window and saw how the water, this high, took it. And I was inside and I could not leave, not in this direction nor in the other direction," he said.
The rains unleashed massive rock slides from the Chichontepec volcano that buried several other houses, Verapaz Mayor Antonio Cerritos told Radio Nacional.
In San Salvador, authorities reported 61 dead. Mendoza said the toll included a family of four, two adults and two children, who were killed when a mudslide buried their home on Sunday morning.
Interior Minister Humberto Centeno told reporters that "the instructions given by the the President of the Republic, Mauricio Funes, are to involve the whole cabinet and civil servants of our government in order to provide help to all the people affected." El Salvador was slammed by three days of heavy rains from a Pacific coast low-pressure system indirectly related to Hurricane Ida, which brushed the Mexican resort of Cancun Sunday and steamed into the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane. The mountains in El Salvador quickly funnelled rain down into populated valleys.
Poverty and precarious construction appeared to play a role in the destruction, as homes clinging to steep hillsides quickly fell prey to mudslides. Authorities had to use helicopters to reach some of the most severely affected townships as many roads were impassable, Centeno said.
At Las Hojas beach, in the department of La Paz, 27 miles (45 kilometres) south of San Salvador, most of the houses were swept away by the current of the Jiboa river, which burst its banks.
There was almost nothing left standing in the village and a helicopter from the Salvadorean emergency services evacuated women and children to shelters in the capital.