Floods paralyse Central America

Floods paralyse Central America GUATEMALA CITY: Raging flood waters cut off large areas of Central America and southern Mexico yesterday, hurting efforts to rescue victims of mudslides that have killed at least 164 people in the wake Hurricane Stan. Emergency teams battled to reach remote villages where hillsides collapsed under torrential rains, and thousands of evacuees from urban shantytowns hunkered down in emergency shelters as rain pounded the region. "We have lots of landslides, and some bridges have collapsed," said Benedicto Giron of the civil-protection agency in Guatemala, where at least 20 communities were completely isolated with rescuers were unable to reach them. Guatemala said it confirmed 79 deaths. There were 62 dead in El Salvador, 10 in both Nicaragua and Mexico and three in Honduras. The flooding came from storms sparked by Hurricane Stan, which smashed into Mexico from the Atlantic earlier this week. Stan was only briefly a hurricane and its winds caused moderate damage but several days of rains swelled normally slow rivers into thundering, brown torrents that swept away bridges, houses, roads and trees across the region. Thousands of homes were destroyed. Troops tried to reach flooded areas with drinking water, food and medical kits but relentless downpours made the task more difficult. Meanwhile, tropical Storm Tammy, the 19th storm of an unusually active Atlantic hurricane season, came ashore in northern Florida on Wednesday and brought heavy rain and high waves to parts of the US Southeast coast. The storm was moving northwest at 22kph with maximum sustained winds of 80kph. Tammy could bring up to 13cm of rainfall to north Florida, southeast Georgia and parts of the Carolinas. ? Agencies