The number of dead and missing in Guatemala due to landslides caused by storm Eta has risen to about 150.
President Alejandro Giammattei said so.
Eta, previously classified as a Category 4 hurricane, had wreaked death and destruction in other Central American countries starting in Nicaragua on Tuesday, before being reclassified to the lower tropical storm level.
However, Giammattei specified that the figure for the victims is not yet confirmed. "At this moment we calculate that between dead and missing, the unofficial figure is 150 dead, let's say it is not official because they are not fully confirmed", Giammattei said at a press conference, explaining that in the village of Quejà, in the municipality of San Cristobal Verapaz, due to a landslide "150 houses have been buried, and here 100 dead are calculated". The head of state reported that "until this morning we had already exceeded the 75,000 people affected" by the tropical depression, which in its passage in Central America has also caused damage and victims in Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica.