200 in Slum Found Buried by Mud Slide

Relief workers have found a shantytown where up to 200 people were buried by a mud slide unleashed by last week’s earthquake, raising the estimated death toll to nearly 1,200, officials said Tuesday.

The mud slide was discovered Monday night, 72 hours after the quake racked the capital of 1 million people, and dozens of relief workers struggled throughout Tuesday to unearth the bodies.

Relief workers said the slum--the Santa Marta neighborhood of San Salvador--was buried beneath 25 feet of mud.

President Jose Napoleon Duarte said that 40 families, or about 200 people, perished in the Santa Marta mud slide, bringing the death toll from Friday’s earthquake close to 1,200.