Rescuers search for 1,200 missing after earthquake
Rescuers using sticks and their bare hands are digging for survivors in buried homes after a powerful earthquake struck El Salvador and Guatemala.
The tremor has killed at least 81 people and left hundreds more missing.
About 1,200 people are unaccounted for in the buried Las Colinas neighbourhood, just west of El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador.
At least 79 people are known to be dead across the country, a National Emergency Committee has announced. Two people died in Guatemala.
Police and rescuers in El Salvador have put the toll from the 7.6-magnitude quake at a slightly higher figure of around 100 confirmed dead and say they fear the number could rise as excavations continue.
One rescuer said the tremor was "like a wave of dirt" .
Rescuers fought to pry into the 1,500-foot landslide which buried an estimated 300 homes in the middle-class neighbourhood.
No survivors have yet been found in the mass of dirt and concrete.
The quake shattered buildings in several cities in this Central American nation of six million. Smaller aftershocks were felt in San Salvador, but there has been no immediate information on their magnitude.
The earthquake also rocked Honduras and Guatemala. Buildings swayed as far away as Mexico City.
Salvadoran President Francisco Flores has declared a national emergency and appealed for international help to search for survivors.
A distraught Arturo Magana, 25, who was wandering about in Las Colinas, trying to find his 18-year-old brother, Jaime, said: "I don't know where to dig because I don't know where the house is."
In the south east town of San Miguel, the wall of a hospital collapsed and 25 people are known to be dead in a small village nearby.
