Over 100 dead in El Salvador flooding

MEXICO CITY/SAN SALVADOR: More than 100 people were killed as heavy rains set off mudslides and caused flooding in El Salvador, rescue workers
said.

The rainfall, which came amid a cold front and the remainders of Caribbean Hurricane Ida, caused havoc in other parts of the region including southern Mexico, where more than 200,000 people were affected.

More than 60 people died in the Salvadoran capital, San Salvador, with another 60 missing late Sunday.

More than 40 residents of the town of San Vicente and the surrounding areas around the base of the Chinchontepec volcano perished in mudslides, said Salvadoran Interior Minister Humberto Centeno. One mudslide covered an area of eight kilometres, damaging several towns, he said.

More than 300 houses were destroyed in San Vicente, and streets and bridges in the region had collapsed.

Some parts of the region were still cut off by flooding. The hurricane had grown to a category 2 storm Sunday. It slid along Mexico's Caribbean coast and past the resort city of Cancun on the Yucatan peninsula, where officials reported little damage late Sunday.

Meteorologists at the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami forecast that Ida would continue into the Gulf of Mexico with landfall looming along the US Gulf Coast.

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