Giant sinkholes in Guatemala leave missing and injured 0:48
(CNN Spanish) --
Guatemalan relief corps continue this Monday with the search for two missing people since Saturday afternoon after falling into one of the two sinkholes that formed on Concepción Street, in zone 6 of Villa New, about 16 kilometers south of the capital.
The authorities confirmed that it is a mother and her daughter, who were traveling in a sedan-type vehicle.
"Efforts are focused on the search and rescue of two disappeared people," said the mayor of Villa Nueva, Javier Gramajo, in a Facebook post.
The Volunteer Fire Department, municipal personnel and the Guatemalan Army coordinate the work of locating the victims, which includes the use of trained dogs.
“We are doing everything humanly possible,” Gramajo added.
"Below the collector there is a large gully that, with the presence of rescue personnel, began to give way and there were landslides, so the work was temporarily stopped," explained Javier Maldonado, Minister of Communications of Guatemala in a conference of press.
The authorities explained that through surveillance camera videos they determined that the vehicle fell into the sinkhole at 7:28 PM, Miami time, and that a person managed to be rescued and taken to the hospital, where they reported that inside the car there were two other people.
The videos have allowed the authorities to establish that, five minutes later, another vehicle fell into the sinking.
Three people who were traveling in it were rescued and taken to the hospital to be treated for the blows.
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In the place there are two sinkholes of 30 meters in diameter and 12 and 15 meters deep, respectively, according to Volunteer Firefighters.
They would have been caused by the intense rains that hit Guatemala this Saturday and forced the authorities to restrict passage in the area and enable alternative routes.
The National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction of Guatemala (Conred), carried out a technical evaluation to "minimize situations of risk, emergency or disaster," the institution reported on its Twitter account.
The sinkholes this Saturday occurred in the same sector where a sinkhole was created last June that the authorities took several weeks to repair.
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