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Haunting images show how volcano turned this Guatemalan town into a cemetery

Reuters)

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The volcano rumbled to life early on Sunday, June 3. By midday, it was spewing ash in smoking columns miles high that then fell, dusting a wide swath of the Central American country. 

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But with the mountain`s rumbles and the first ash showers, many villagers made a fatal bet to stay put, gambling that luck that had protected them for decades would hold once again.

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By the time most families in the worst-hit hamlets of El Rodeo and San Miguel de Los Lotes knew what was happening, they only had time to run, if that.

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There was no time to eat. Sunday family lunches were interrupted, the food left on the table. 

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Children abandoned toys... 

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...and clothes still hung on lines in backyards.

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In one home, the pages of a Bible are singed. Outside, cattle lay dead. A bass drum lay abandoned. In kitchens, there was food in pots ready to be served.

 

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 Where once there was life, there is heat, dust and a lingering smell of sulfur.

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Now, everything in the previously lush, bright green landscape is coated in thick layers of sepia-colored volcanic ash, giving the place the eerie feeling of a ghost ship. 

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Many lost 10 to 50 relatives each, descendents of intertwining generations of a small families who settled in Los Lotes more than 40 years ago. They refuse to give up hope of finding relatives - or at least their remains.

 

(All images and text: Reuters) 

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