MUDSLIDE BURIES HUNDREDS OF HOMES IN MEXICO

MEXICAN LANSLIDE KILLS
AT LEAST SEVEN; 100 MISSING

MEXICO CITY - Pounded by incessant rain, a hillside in the state of Oaxaca collapsed onto a village early Tuesday, burying houses in mud and stones and trapping hundreds of people as they slept, state authorities said. As many as 300 houses in the village of the Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, in northern Oaxaca, may have been buried in the landslide, the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, told Mexican television. Initially, the state’s governor, said 500 to 1000 people were feared buried in the landslide. It was too early to say how many victims were trapped or buried under the earth, but Mr. Ruiz said that the number of missing could run as high as 1,000. Military and naval units, state police and rescue workers were traveling to the remote village, along with earth-moving equipment, but progress was slow because the heavy rains had caused landslides that blocked the roads to the village. “We hope to reach in time to rescue those families who were buried by the hill,” Mr. Ruiz told Televisa, a Mexican television network.

Tropical Storm Matthew caused heavy flooding in much of Oaxaca last week, but Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, in the Mixe region north of Oaxaca city, the state capital, receives heavy rainfall for much of the year. Under ordinary circumstances, the village is a four-hour drive from the state capital. Severe rains caused a hillside to collapse at about 4 a.m. local time, burying homes in the town of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec as residents slept, Ruiz said, citing information from local authorities, news agency AFP reported. Rescuers from the military are beginning to arrive in the rural town, at least three hours by car from the state capital. Access has been difficult because many roads are blocked by mud, Ruiz said earlier today in an interview on the Televisa network. The Mexican Red Cross is sending 40 health specialists to Oaxaca to assist in the rescue, spokesman Rafael Gonzalez said. The organization is also sending rescue dogs and 15 emergency vehicles, he said in a phone interview from Mexico City.


During the last 12 days in a row it has rained because of tropical storms Matthew and Karl. Oaxaca Red Cross reported through its Twitter account that hundreds of people held without communication. About 300 houses may have been hit by the mudslide, representing 10 percent of the dwellings in the town of Oaxaca, y another country, as many as 30 people were trapped after heavy rains caused a landslide on a road near Medellin, Colombia. Our situation in this material world is very unstable and are exposed to constant dangers.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

What relish can there be for material enjoyments when we are exposed to hunger, thirst, disease, decrepitude, emaciation, growth, decline and death.
The universe is tending to decay - grass, trees, animals - spring up and die. Mighty men are gone leaving their joys and glories. Beings still greater than these have passed away, vast oceans have dried - mountains have been thrown down, the polar star displaced, the cords that bind the planets rent asunder, the whole earth deluged with flood - in such a world what relish can there be for fleeting enjoyments?
Living in such a world are we not like frogs jumping in a dried up well?

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thākura Prabhupāda :
“Vaishnavism Real & Apparent”
Chapter: “Two Minds - Material and Spiritual”
http://www.bvml.org/SBSST/index.htm