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Quake death toll reaches 274
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El SALVADOR's neighbours joined in a desperate search for survivors amid the rubble of several devastated Salvadoran villages on Wednesday, as the official death toll from the tiny nation's second earthquake in a month climbed to 274.
Guatemalan firemen and Honduran rescue workers hooked up with Salvadoran army units as the search for survivors shifted to isolated rural areas close to the epicentre of Tuesday's 6.6-magnitude quake, which damaged or destroyed 15,440 homes and injured at least 2,432 people.
``Right now we are concentrating on saving lives in the countryside, where there are more people buried,'' Salvadoran army special forces Col Mauricio Somoza told Reuters at the unit's makeshift headquarters opposite the wrecked colonial church in the town of San Vicente. ``The situation is grave.'' Up to half the houses in San Vicente, some 40 miles east of the capital San Salvador, were flattened, and the nearby towns of Analquito, San Emigdio, Guadalupe and Verapaz were ``70 per cent to 80 per cent destroyed,'' President Francisco Flores said in a national broadcast late on Tuesday.
Salvador's National Emergency Committee pegged the number of homeless nationwide at 122,802 late Wednesday, adding that the quake had triggered 25 landslides and destroyed six churches.
Rescuers -- aided by a flight of three US army helicopters sent on Tuesday from Honduras -- feared workers could be trapped at a collapsed coffee farm on the slopes of nearby San Vicente volcano. Around 37 people in San Vicente department were reported still missing on Wednesday.
The devastating quake rattled through eastern El Salvador one month to the day after one of 7.6 magnitude killed more than 800 people and left thousands homeless in the impoverished, coffee-exporting nation of 6.2 million.
Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for from the January earthquake, which triggered a landslide burying whole blocks of the capital city's Santa Tecla suburb under mud, and made thousands homeless.
Spanish monarch Queen Sofia was scheduled to arrive in the quake-rocked nation at 17:45 local time at the start of a three-day visit in which she is set to attend a service in the metropolitan cathedral and visit survivors in Santa Tecla.
A team of eight disaster specialists from Spain were also due to arrive in an afternoon flight, bringing much needed supplies, including tents, medicines, blankets and food.
As rescue teams worked to restore vital water and electricity supplies in San Vicente, dazed survivors told of a night spent on the streets to avoid powerful aftershocks they feared could bring down their quake damaged homes.
More than 150 aftershocks have rocked El Salvador since Tuesday's quake, continually sending panic-stricken office workers into the streets and forcing schools to close.
The earthquake was also felt in the neighbouring nations of Honduras and Guatemala.(SD-Agencies)
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