CINCHONA, Costa Rica -- Rescue workers with dogs were threatened by mudslides on Sunday as they searched among collapsed houses for survivors of an earthquake that killed more than 20 people in a Costa Rican town last week.
Sniffer dogs stumbled through rubble around the village of Cinchona, on the flank of the Poas Volcano, where rescuers believe more victims may be found in a restaurant crushed by a landslide after Thursday's 6.1-magnitude quake.
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An aerial view of houses destroyed by landslide after an earthquake in Cinchona, 70 km (43 miles) north of San Jose, January 11, 2009. As rescue workers on Sunday combed through houses collapsed by last week's deadly earthquake, Costa Rican officials feared that unstable ground and daily rains could cause mudslides in the region. A Red Cross official put the death toll at 20, but the number could rise. [Agencies]
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"We think there are two people in this house, so we're going to cut through the roof and dig to see what we can find," said rescuer Andres Madrigal, who later recovered the bodies of two small children and a woman from the house.
A Red Cross official had earlier put the death toll at 20. Authorities visited shelters crammed with hundreds of Costa Ricans in the hopes of narrowing a list of missing people.
Daily rain has added to the danger of more landslides, said National Emergency Commission official Victor Falla. "Some (ground shifts) are so strong that work has to be suspended," he said. "Everyone, including the rescuers, has to run."
