Landslide Wipes Mountain Village of La Pintada from the Map of Mexico Will Grant - BBC News
go to original September 30, 2013

At least 68 people were feared dead after massive landslide buried half of coffee-growing village of La Pintada. (Al Jazeera)

MEXICO CITY - Margarito Hernandez is still numb with grief. Answering at times with barely a murmur, at others in great torrents of words, he recounts the worst night of his life: Mexican Independence Day 2013.

The 18-year-old carpenter is from La Pintada, the small village in the mountains of Guerrero which was last week almost completely destroyed by a mudslide caused by the torrential rains of Hurricane Manuel.

His father, his brother and his sister-in-law were all engulfed by the thousands of tonnes of rock and slick mud which tore through the village in a matter of seconds. They are among the 68 people missing, presumed dead.

"It happened in an instant," he remembers. "It was like an explosion, like a bomb going off. The mountain didn't take even a minute to reach the very center of the village. It destroyed everything in its path."

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