Earthquake Shakes Central America

Sunday, January 14th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) â€” Rescuers using sticks and their bare hands dug for survivors in buried homes Sunday after a powerful earthquake struck El Salvador and Guatemala, killing at least 122 people and leaving many more missing.

In the confusion following Saturday's 7.6-magnitude quake, officials gave varying accounts of the damage.

The Red Cross said Saturday that about 1,200 people were unaccounted for in the buried Las Colinas neighborhood just west of El Salvador's capital. At least 120 people are known to be dead and 10 were missing across the country, a National Emergency Committee announced Sunday. Two people died in Guatemala.

National Police in El Salvador put the toll at 234 confirmed dead and 2,000 injured. Police said 16,148 houses were damaged and 4,202 destroyed. Police reported damage to 87 churches and 39 other buildings.

``It was like a wave of dirt that covered us,'' said Emilio Renderos, 60, a watchman employed in Las Colinas. ``It was horrible.''

Pope John Paul II on Sunday urged the international community to come to the aid of earthquake victims in Central America.

Mexico sent an air force plane early Sunday with aid and promises of help came from the United States, Spain and Taiwan.

Rescuers fought to pry into the 1,500-foot landslide that had buried an estimated 300 homes in the middle-class neighborhood.

By morning, 61 bodies had been recovered at Las Colinas. At least three survivors had yet been found in the mass of dirt and concrete.

The quake shattered buildings in several cities in this Central American nation of 6 million. Smaller aftershocks were felt in San Salvador late Saturday, but there was no immediate information on their magnitude.

Centered off El Salvador's southern coast, the temblor also rocked Honduras and Guatemala. Buildings swayed as far away as Mexico City.

Salvadoran President Francisco Flores declared a national emergency and appealed for international help to search for survivors.

A distraught Arturo Magana, 25, wandered about in Las Colinas, trying to find his 18-year-old brother, Jaime.

``I don't know where to dig because I don't know where the house is,'' he said.

In the southeastern town of San Miguel, the wall of a hospital collapsed and 25 people were known to be dead in a small village nearby.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said it had three people in El Salvador before the quake and that five more were en route. As soon a suitable airport is open, the agency plans to send a planeload of relief supplies, including medical kits, blankets and plastic sheeting, from a stockpile in Miami.

The quake knocked out El Salvador's telephone service and electricity for several hours, impeding the spread of news. Only sketchy reports had arrived from many hard-hit areas.

In Santa Ana, about 35 miles northwest of the capital, the 116-year-old El Calvario church collapsed, killing at least one employee and possibly others worshipping inside, according to the Rev. Robert Castro.

The Red Cross reported that 13 people died in nearby Sosonati. Some 200 other victims were rushed to the area hospital, which authorities weren't sure was still structurally sound.

The quake was centered off the Salvadoran coast, about 65 miles southwest of San Miguel, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colo.

It took more than an hour for some San Salvador radio stations to return to the air and telephone service remained spotty at mid-afternoon. There were cracked buildings and shattered windows across the city of 500,000.

Officials at San Salvador's international airport said all flights had been canceled

Police in neighboring Guatemala said a man and a 2-year-old girl were killed and three other people were injured when a pair of homes collapsed in the city of Jalpataua.

Local radio stations reported the collapse of a church in Suchitepequez, in southern Guatemala.

The quake set off car alarms and temporarily knocked out electricity, radio, television and cellular phone service all over Guatemala, but most service was quickly restored.

Honduran officials reported cracked buildings in several cities, but there were no reports of injuries.

A 1986 earthquake centered near San Salvador killed an estimated 1,500 people and injured 8,000.