Prosecutors investigating possible criminal misconduct at the site on flank of Guatemala City after warnings about risk of building homes in the neighbourhood

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

At least 220 bodies have been recovered after a massive landslide buried part of a town in Guatemala last week but about 350 people are still missing, the country’s national disaster agency has announced.

Guatemala landslide: under the mud, dead families found huddled together Read more

Loosened by heavy rains, a hillside collapsed on to Santa Catarina Pinula on the south-eastern flank of Guatemala City on 1 October, burying more than 100 homes under tonnes of earth, rock and trees, and sparking a huge rescue effort.

The National Coordinator for the Reduction of Disasters (Conred) said on Thursday that 386 people were evacuated after the tragedy, one of the worst in years in Central America, a region prone to devastating floods.

Entire families were buried alive and hundreds of rescue workers have spent the past week trying to dig out bodies.

Guatemalan authorities initially said up to 600 people were accounted for in the disaster. Since then, it has given various estimates on the number missing.

Prosecutors in Guatemala said they are looking at whether there was any criminal misconduct at the site after Conred warned of the risks of building homes in the neighborhood, which lies at the bottom of a deep ravine. (