Tribe Hard Hit By Floods, Mud
Central American Death Toll Tops 1,000; Many Are Sutujil Indians
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Play CBS Video Video Guatemala Ends Rescue Effort CBS News RAW: Guatemalan communities buried under rivers of mud by Hurricane Stan will be abandoned and declared graveyards. Many of the missing will simply be declared dead.
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An aerial view from a U.S. Army helicopter shows the destruction from a recent mudslide, one of many near the town of Panajachel, Guatemala. (AP)
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A man walks through the mud as he crosses the international checkpoint on the border of Mexico-Guatemala at Ciudad Hidalgo, the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico. (AP)
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Guatemalan boys stand in a rainstorm following the arrival of a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter making a humanitarian delivery, in San Marcos, Guatemala, Oct 9, 2005. (AP)
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Guatemalans look on as police unload food aid into a truck from a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter making a humanitarian delivery, in San Marcos, Oct. 9. 2005. (AP)
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Villagers try to get a hand on the food being distributed by the Guatemalan Army in the flooding ravaged communities near Puerto San Jose, Escuintla, 68 miles south of Guatemala City, Sunday. (AP)
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Photo Essay Hurricane Stan A major storm brings rainfall and deadly mudslides to Central America.
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Fast Facts Guatemala Learn about the people, economy and history.
Many of the missing will simply be pronounced dead, and the ground where the bodies rest declared hallowed earth. About 160 bodies had been recovered in Panabaj and nearby towns, and most were buried in mass graves. Many could not be identified, either because no family members were left alive or because the bodies were too decomposed.
Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein said steps are being taken to give towns "legal permission to declare the buried areas cemeteries" as "a sanitary measure." In addition, the government asked the United Nations on Monday for $21.5 million in aid because its own emergency response funds would not be enough to cope with the crisis.
Indian residents of Santiago Atitlan, dressed in embroidered shirts and cotton, knee-length shorts with sashes, performed incense- and herb-laden rituals both to pacify the spirits of the dead and to ask to be spared from further disasters.
Also visible at the site were a series of iron rods tied with red plastic to indicate where sniffer dogs had located bodies.
The sun shone brightly Monday as government and foreign helicopters ferried in medicine and water treatment supplies to Santiago Atitlan's town square, a stone courtyard fronting a 16th-century Roman Catholic Church.
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