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Mexican soldiers dug on Tuesday for at least 16 people feared killed by a giant mudslide that buried a village when torrential rains caused a soaked hillside to collapse.
A wall of water and mud over one kilometre long engulfed Juan de Grijalva on Sunday night, smothering houses under tonnes of earth and rock.
"The sound was like a helicopter coming," said Carolina Hernandez, 16. "My dad died with my two little sisters," she said while relatives hugged her.
The mudslide left a huge brown stain on the green tropical hills of Chiapas state before falling into a river and kicking up a huge wave that hit the village.
The army flew rescue teams to the remote area.
"What the soldiers are working on is digging into the hill," said civil protection official Sergio Chacon. Scuba divers were searching the Grijalva River for survivors or bodies, he said.
Locals said the death toll could reach more than 30.
Francisco Navarro, 42, searched the water in a fishing boat. "There are many people from the village who haven't appeared," said Navarro, a teacher who said he had lost nine relatives, including a brother.
News from the village, perched on a remote mountain, took almost a day to reach the outside world. Initial reports said the accident happened on Monday.
The rains that triggered the mudslide had already flooded Tabasco state down river, forcing some 800,000 people from their homes in one of Mexico's biggest natural disasters of recent years.
Much of Tabasco was still under water after the floods last week. Gov. Andres Granier put the economic cost of the disaster at 50 billion pesos ($6.12 billion).
Despite the destruction and dramatic images of houses flooded up to roof levels over huge areas, only three people have been reported dead in Tabasco, an oil-producing state.
The federal government was due to begin pumping water from state capital Villahermosa, home to half a million people, on Tuesday but most residents are unlikely to return for up to three months.
President Felipe Calderon cancelled a planned trip to an Ibero-American summit starting in Chile on Thursday to visit Chiapas.
Many of the areas worst hit by the flooding have been turned from woodland into farmland in recent decades, removing forests that could have reduced the effects of the flooding.
"It's not a coincidence that the consequences have been most serious in regions where deforestation has been heaviest, like Chiapas," said Hector Magallon of the environmental group Greenpeace.
Mexico's coffee crop in the main growing state of Chiapas has not been damaged by torrential rains over the last few days, leaders of two growers' groups said on Tuesday.
- REUTERS
