SANTA CATARINA PINULA, Guatemala (AP) – A wall of mud stopped everyday life mid-text, mid-sentence, mid-dream for the family of Manuel Sandoval and Maritza Aquino.
A normal Thursday night, daughter-in-law Tanya Garcia had made her regular evening call to her mother. She worried about her blood pressure. Granddaughter Melany Sandoval was texting a friend in another state in Guatemala, and suddenly the conversation stopped.
In all, seven family members are now dead and four still missing from the canyon home that Sandoval built 16 years ago, and where he, wife Maritza, three sons and their families lived. They are among 69 dead and possibly hundreds more buried late Thursday when a rain-soaked hillside collapsed in the outskirts of Guatemala City.
Pablo Sandoval, the only surviving brother, was at work during the slide and said he heard from a friend that there had been some kind of tragedy in his neighborhood. When he arrived home, he saw “nothing but dirt.” It was his job to identify and retrieve the bodies. A large man, he handed out bear hugs and shared tears with scores of people who streamed through a house loaned for the wake with an open-air court on the town square, with rooms enough for seven caskets.
“We were a family of workers, fighters, from my parents down to the youngest,” he said. “Very caring. The best.”