| GEO World | | Floods, landslides kill 136 in El Salvador | Updated at: 1503 PST, Tuesday, November 10, 2009
VERAPAZ: Rescue workers combed through mud, rubble and debris in search of survivors from raging floods and landslides that killed at least 136 people, after a late-season hurricane devastated swaths of Central America.
Landslides and overflowing rivers swept away entire homes, while a raging torrent ripped through an large section of the town of Verapaz, where bodies covered in mud-caked sheets -- were stored in a local chapel, waiting to be identified.
Rescue efforts focused on eastern San Vicente department, where 72 people were still missing after three days of driving rain, 60 of them in Verapaz alone, officials said late Monday.
A civil protection official updated the death toll from the storm from 130 to 136, adding that more than 13,000 people fled their homes, some 1,800 homes were damaged or destroyed and 18 bridges and many roads were washed away by the floods.
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