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Landslide kills 47

Published:Thursday | December 9, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos (centre in blue vest) walks at La Gabriela neighbourhood in Bello, northwestern Colombia, yesterday. Up to yesterday 47 bodies have been recovered but scores of people remain missing following a Sunday landslide that buried a large area of the Medellin suburb. - AP

BOGOTA (AP):

The toll of confirmed deaths in Colombia's landslide has reached 47, with at least 80 people still unaccounted for.

Antioquia state Emergency Management Director John Rendon tells The Associated Press there is no chance of finding survivors under the sodden earth, which is up to 26 feet (eight metres) deep.

Sunday's slide buried about three dozen homes in the poor Medellin suburb of Bello. It followed Colombia's heaviest rains in 42 years of record-keeping,

Rendon said yesterday that about 500 people are working to recover the dead.

President Juan Manuel Santos has declared a 30-day state of emergency that will allow emergency appropriations to deal with record flooding, which by official count has claimed 223 lives this year.