16 missing in Mexican mudslides
Southern Mexico has been hit hard by torrential rains.
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Tuesday, 06, Nov 2007 10:01
At least 16 people are missing and feared dead after a severe mudslide hit a village in Mexico's southern Chiapas state, according to officials.
Heavy rain has led to severe flooding in the region and the adjacent state of Tabasco with as many as half a million people left homeless.
And after torrential rain led to the collapse of a hillside into a river, as many as 30 residents of the San Juan Grijalva community are thought missing, after villagers fled to escape the advancing wall of debris.
"This village practically disappeared," the Associated Press news agency quoted Chiapas governor Juan Sabines as saying at the scene.
Rescue workers have reached the stricken community by helicopter, the interior ministry has confirmed, with around 100 houses potentially buried according to local media reports.
However civil protection official Alejandro Cabrera told the Reuters news agency: "We know there was a mudslide there but we don't know its magnitude."
"We are trying to re-establish communication," he added.
While foreign assistance is beginning to filter into southern Mexico - with the UK dispatching ten experts and inflatable boats and Cuba pledging 50 doctors - aid distribution has caused looting, with 50 arrests in the Tabasco state capital of Villahermosa during the weekend.