SAN CRISTOBAL CUCHO, Guatemala — The 10 members of the Vasquez family were found together dead under the rubble of the rock quarry that had been their livelihood, some in a desperate final embrace, others clinging to the faintest of dying pulses.
As Guatemalans sought Thursday to pick up the pieces after a 7.4-magnitude quake, one family’s tragic story came to symbolize the horror of a disaster that killed at least 52 people, and left thousands of others huddling in the cold shadows of cracked adobe buildings, most without electricity or water.
On Thursday, neighbors arrived to pay their respects. They filed past 10 wooden caskets in the Vasquez family living room and contemplated the future of the family’s only surviving son — 19-year-old Ivan. Dead in the rubble were Justo Vasquez, his wife Ofelia Gomez, six of their children and two nephews.
Ivan Vasquez had stayed in the house when the rest of his family went to the quarry, taking care of some last-minute details to receive his accounting degree. He is the first in his family to have a professional career. His father had been saving for a party to celebrate Ivan’s Nov. 23 graduation.
“He died working,” said his sister-in-law Antonia Lopez. “He was fighting for his kids.”
Hundreds of villagers in the humble town of San Cristobal Cucho ran to dig the family out Wednesday after Guatemala’s biggest earthquake in 36 years. When they uncovered some of the children — one body still warm, two with pulses — the youths were in the arms of their father, who had tried to shield them from the falling mountain.
The death toll was expected to rise. Twenty-two people were still missing, President Otto Perez Molina said in a news conference. Eight were killed in the neighboring state of Quetzaltenango.
Perez said the powerful quake, felt as far as Mexico City 600 miles away, affected as many as 1.2 million Guatemalans. A little more than 700 people were in shelters Thursday, with most opting to stay with family or friends, he said.
“They have no drinking water, no electricity, no communication and are in danger of experiencing more aftershocks,” Perez said. He said there had been 70 aftershocks in the first 24 hours after the quake, some as strong as magnitude 5.1.
Damaged homes will be among the biggest problems the country will face in the coming days, Perez added.
Guatemalans fearing aftershocks huddled in the streets in the nearby city of San Marcos, the most affected area, where at least 40 people died. Others crowded inside its hospital, the only building in town left with electricity.
More than 90 rescue workers continued to dig with backhoes at a half-ton mound of sand at a second quarry that buried seven people.
“We started rescue work very early,” said Julio Cesar Fuentes of the municipal Fire Department. “The objective is our hope to find people who were buried.”
But they uncovered only more dead. One man was called to the quarry to identify his dead father. When he climbed into the sand pit and recognized the clothing, the son collapsed onto the shoulders of firefighters, crying: “Papa, Papa, Papa.”
He and his father were not identified to the news media because other relatives had not been notified of the death.
Volunteers carrying boxes of medical supplies began arriving in western Guatemala late Wednesday.
The quake, which was 20 miles deep, was centered 15 miles off the coastal town of Champerico and 100 miles southwest of Guatemala City. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Guatemala since a 1976 temblor that killed 23,000.
Perez said more than 2,000 soldiers were deployed to help with the disaster. A plane had made at least two trips to carry relief teams to the area.
Information for this article was contributed by Romina Ruiz-Goiriena of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 11/09/2012