Mud and rock avalanche kills 36 people
Rescue workers are struggling to look for the bodies of 36 people, buried by an avalanche of rock and mud in the Andes.
The avalanche swept over an Ecuador campsite where the motorists had taken shelter after being stranded by smaller landslides.
The victims had been riding in buses, trucks and cars and were stranded about 30 miles east of Quito, the capital.
"The zone is very difficult to get to. We have terrain saturated with water," Red Cross spokesman Cristian Rivera said. "In many cases, the mud is waist deep."
Mr Rivera said three bodies had been recovered. He added that many of the bodies were trapped under a large boulder.
At least 41 people have been killed during several days of heavy rains in Ecuador's Andes Mountains. Nearly 2,500 other people, mostly in Ecuador's eastern and southern Amazon region, were forced to evacuate their homes because of rivers overflowing their banks, officials said.
There was a break in four days of heavy rain today, but rescue workers were told to take precautions.
Authorities said about 10 people survived the landslide and were transferred to an emergency Red Cross centre.
Residents in the area, a midway point between the Andes mountains and the Amazon jungle have been cut off because roads were blocked by landslides caused by four days of torrential rain.
A landslide also ruptured Ecuador's main oil pipeline, sending flames shooting into the air. Rodolfo Barniol, president of Petroecuador, said the rupture is expected to have cut off transport of crude oil for four to five days.
