Mexico mudslide left 4 homes buried, 6 missing, villagers say

Tlahuitoltepec, Agency
A mudslide in the southern Mexican town of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec left four homes buried and six members of one family missing, area residents told Efe early Wednesday.
Initial reports from municipal authorities and the Oaxaca state government indicated that between 100 and 300 homes had been buried when a hillside collapsed early Tuesday in this Indian community of 8,900 inhabitants, provoking fears of dozens or even hundreds of deaths.

Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz even said that as many as 1,000 people may have died, although the tragedy proved to be on a much smaller scale.

Hundreds of soldiers, paramedics and rescue workers, as well as dozens of Mexican and foreign journalists, traveled to the site of what was believed to be a major catastrophe.

Efe was able to confirm that the mudslide covered an area of approximately 1,000 square meters (10,750 square feet), buried four homes (two of them partially) and caused structural damage to other nearby houses.

Power outages in Tlahuitoltepec, a town made up of eight neighborhoods that has electricity and running water, were only reported in the immediate area of the mudslide.

Interior Secretary Francisco Blake and Gov. Ruiz said late Tuesday that only 11 people had been confirmed missing - eight children and three adults - and that the magnitude of the disaster was far smaller than initially feared.

Local residents, for their part, said that they were only looking for six missing persons.

Several residents, mostly Mixe Indians, complained that authorities offered assistance when they thought 300 homes had been destroyed but abandoned the area after confirming that only four residences had been affected by the mudslide.

A group of peasants in that small Oaxaca community took it upon themselves to try to clear away the mud from the four buried homes, using picks and shovels in their effort.

The search-and-recovery effort in Tlahuitoltepec was complicated by dozens of smaller slides that had blocked the road connecting the affected community with the tourist town of Mitla and which had to be removed by earthmovers.

As of early Wednesday, the road was still covered with fallen trees, mud and vegetation, blocking passage entirely along some stretches.

Some local peasants told Efe that Tlahuitoltepec - which is located more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of the state capital and 500 kilometers from Mexico City - had been cut off for a week without authorities taking necessary action.