Mudslides leave 38 dead in Guatemala

Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused mudslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala - most of them in separate disasters along the same highway.

In the village of Nahuala, rescue crews were last night searching through mud and rocks for bodies after two landslides in the same spot killed at least 20 people along a highway leading toward Mexico.

A slide on Saturday trapped vehicles on the Inter-American highway, and some of the people who came to rescue them were themselves caught by a second slide, officials reported.

"Under the earth there is a bus that carried we don't know how many people, and there are those who tried to help the victims of the first slide," regional fire department Major Otto Mazariegos said.

President Alvaro Colom has declared a national emergency. Thousands of people have already been evacuated.