About 150 people have either died or remain unaccounted for in Guatemala due to mudslides caused by powerful Storm Eta, which buried an entire village, President Alejandro Giammattei said Friday (local time).
Mr Giammattei said an army unit had arrived in the northern village of Queja to begin rescue efforts.
He said a preliminary report from the unit indicated that "150 homes have been buried with 100 people dead".
Mr Giammattei added that another mudslide in the northeastern department of Huehuetenango, on the border with Mexico, had left 10 dead.
"We've calculated that between deaths and those missing, the unofficial figures show around 150 dead," he said, adding the situation in Queja was "critical" with heavy rain continuing to fall and provoking new mudslides. Roads also remain blocked.
Mr Giammattei said some 2,500 people in the impoverished Mayan indigenous area had lost their belongings in the deluge of mud.
There were several refuges in the area because some villages are cut off and lacking food and water.
Eta has torn through Central America, leaving death and destruction in its wake since it made landfall in Nicaragua on Tuesday as a category 4 hurricane, although it has since been downgraded.
National Anti Maras and Gangs Force of agents rescuing people from an area flooded by Hurricane Eta in the city of La Lima north of Honduras, 06 November 2020. Source: FNAMP
Eta struck the Caribbean coast of northern Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday, tearing through impoverished coastal areas and sweeping away whole villages.
Two days later it exited Honduras as a tropical depression, although weather forecasters warned it could again strengthen into a tropical storm as it heads towards Cuba.
The storm brought heavy rain that caused deadly flooding in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama.
