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Five dead in Guatemalan landslide after heavy rains

by Reuters
Saturday, 31 May 2014 22:14 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY, May 31 (Reuters) - A landslide caused by heavy rains killed five and injured three in a mountainous farming region of Guatemala, an emergency official said on Saturday.

A mud flow crushed a home in San Pedro Necta, Huehuetenango, a small town 300 kilometers northwest of the capital, trapping members of two families inside late on Friday, a spokesman for Guatemala's national disaster relief commission said.

The landslide damaged up to a dozen other homes but rescuers don't believe any additional people are missing, he said.

Guatemala's rainy season, which runs from May through November, dumps an average of up to 400 millimeters of rain per month, often causing severe flooding and deadly avalanches in the poor Central American nation of roughly 15 million people. (Reporting By Mike McDonald; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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