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Tropical Storm Agatha Lashes Central America
The first tropical storm of the Pacific hurricane season has left at least 99 people dead as heavy rains triggered flash floods and mudslides across Central America.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Guatemala have been forced from their homes
Tropical Storm Agatha slammed into Guatemala on Sunday where it has had the most devastating effect, leaving 82 dead according to officials.
El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico have also been affected by floods and landslides and hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.
"We have suffered many personal misfortunes," Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom told reporters.
"But from now we enter a transition stage where we attend to the people in the shelters."
Authorities in El Salvador have accounted for nine deaths so far with Honduras reporting eight people dead.
All three have declared a nationwide state of emergency and Colombia and the US have offered to send aircraft to transport aid supplies or help with evacuations.
The 40mph winds have dissipated since they first hit Guatemala and the storm has now been downgraded to a tropical depression.
But authorities in the region are still trying to reach cut-off communities and the death toll is expected to rise.
In Guatemala, 112,000 people have fled their homes and a local mayor said a landslide in the Solola district swept away 25 homes in one village, killing 15 people with another 10 missing.
The president has stated that bodies will be buried quickly to prevent the outbreak of disease and schools will remain closed this week.
The storm is a double disaster for Guatemala after its Pacaya volcano erupted on Wednesday showering the capital in ash and killing two people. Three others are still missing.
The ash has closed La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, so President Colom has requested the use of an airport in Mexico's border city of Tapachula for emergency flights.
Freddy Sanchez from Guatemala's national seismological institute warned it was highly likely that there could be more "violent explosions" in the coming days.
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