Confirmed death toll at 47 in Colombia landslide

The toll of confirmed deaths in Colombia’s landslide has reached 47, with about 80 people still unaccounted for.

Antioquia state emergency management director John Rendon tells The Associated Press there is no chance of finding survivors under the sodden earth, which is up to 26 feet deep.

Sunday’s slide buried about three dozen homes in the poor Medellin suburb of Bello. It followed Colombia’s heaviest rains in 42 years of record-keeping, Rendon said Wednesday that about 500 people are working to recover the dead.

President Juan Manuel Santos has declared a 30-day state of emergency that will allow emergency appopriations to deal with record flooding, which by official count has claimed 223 lives this year.