Central American Storms Kill More Than 150
By Diego Mendez, Associated Press

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Heavy rains pounded Central America for a fourth day Wednesday, pushing rivers over their banks, flooding communities and unleashing at least two deadly mudslides as the region's death toll increased to more than 150 people.

Hurricane Stan, which had helped spawn rainstorms in Central America, weakened to a depression over the southern state of Oaxaca on Wednesday, a day after making landfall along Mexico's Gulf coast. But punishing rains continued in parts of Central America and southern Mexico.

Heavy rains brought flooding and mudslides to 88 communities in neighboring Guatemala, where officials reported 79 people killed and 49 injured. That tally included a mudslide that buried several homes and claimed 15 lives near the tourist destination of Lake Atitlan, about 60 miles west of the capital, Guatemala City, according to volunteer firefighters.

Guatemalan President Oscar Berger called on Congress to declare a national state of emergency, allowing the government to force evacuations of dangerous areas, set prices on emergency supplies and provide federal coordination of relief efforts.

"But we're only going to do all of this if it is absolutely necessary," Berger said.

In El Salvador, President Tony Saca said late Wednesday night that 62 people had been killed, mostly by landslides following days of nonstop rain throughout the country. Nearly 41,000 others fled their homes for 360 shelters set up nationwide.

Among those evacuated were residents of Santa Tecla, outside the capital, San Salvador, where a strong earthquake caused a massive landslide in January 2001. Officials have worried the mountain running alongside the neighborhood might collapse again with heavy rains or another quake.

Nine people died in storm-related storms in Nicaragua, including six migrants believed to be Ecuadoreans killed in a boat wreck. Four deaths were reported in Honduras and one in Costa Rica.

In the Chiapas city of Tapachula, near Mexico's border with Guatemala, three people were killed when an overflowing river roared through the city, also carrying homes of wood and metal, civil protection officials said Wednesday. Three other Chiapas residents were confirmed dead, as flooding forced hundreds of evacuations.

President Vicente Fox paid a visit to the area, where heavy rains continued to fall. Later, he said from Mexico City, "we ask families there in Chiapas to first dedicate all of their attention to protecting their lives, their health and family members."

Tapachula was largely cut off from surrounding areas as major highways, roads and bridges were left under water. "Sadly, we know it's going to keep raining," Chiapas Gov. Pablo Salazar said.

Other Mexican victims included a married couple who were killed Wednesday in a landslide in the southern state of Oaxaca, civil protection officials said.

Civil protection authorities in the state of Veracruz, which took a direct hit from the hurricane, reported three deaths and seven injuries. And witnesses said a man was electrocuted as he helped evacuation efforts in the city of Veracruz.

At least 9,000 people woke up in shelters in Veracruz on Wednesday morning and about 38,000 people had been evacuated from their homes throughout the state, officials said.

The nationally owned oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said Tuesday that the hurricane disrupted an unspecified amount of oil production for at least a day. The company's three Gulf coast crude-oil loading portsreopened Wednesday.

Pemex is the world's third-largest oil producer, and most of its exports are sent to the United States.