They had only uncovered seven bodies when more mud began to fall. They found the bodies of seven people on the edge. A Mexican Red Cross team removes a body from a home buried beneath a mudslide. Flood victims clashed with police over the weekend, protesting what they claimed was an inadequate and misguided government response to the floods, by some accounts the worst to strike the region in 400 years. More than 200,000 people have been driven from their homes and hundreds have been declared missing.
Frantic searches are under way for victims in towns across the coast.
In the city of Tenango, workers scrambled to shore up a dam after an inspection revealed a foot-long crack. Dump trucks poured tons of dirt and rocks in front of the dam and authorities evacuated 3,000 people living near its base. Mudslides and avalanches smashed through entire villages, burying an unknown number of people. In Mixun, a tiny mountain hamlet that is home to about 100 Totonac Indians, an entire hillside buried at least 20 people including 12 children. The bodies of four children were pulled from the mud on Sunday.