Heavy rains have caused floods and landslides throughout Central America, leaving at least 18 dead, thousands displaced and many roads impassable and communities cut off. Fourteen were killed in Costa Rica Oct. 11 when a mudslide brought down a hillside community at Atenas, 50 kilometers west of the capital, San José. Some 1,400 have been evacuated from their homes in Guatemala, where an "orange alert" has been declared throughout most of the country, with the highland department of Huehuetenango hardest hit. Some 2,000 have been evacuated in Nicaragua's western department of Chinandega. (Nuevo Diario, Nicaragua, Oct. 14; Nuevo Diario, Oct. 14; Prensa Libre, Guatemala, Oct. 12)

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