GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) – The toll from the heaviest rains in living memory in Guatemala and Mexico rose above 50, as Guatemalan officials called off the search for 15 more corpses over safety fears.

Mexican authorities said three workers cleaning a drainage system in the center of the country had been buried by rocks and mud dislodged from a nearby hill, taking the toll there to at least seven after a week of downpours.

 In Guatemala, where at least 45 people died over the weekend, rescuers had just resumed the grim task of digging for bodies in a ravine next to the Pan-American Highway when officials decided the sodden terrain was unsafe.

Other countries hit with recent flooding and mudslides included Honduras, where floods killed 55 people; Nicaragua, where 40 people died; and El Salvador, where nine people were killed.

Wildfire Hits Colorado

BOULDER, Colorado (AP) – David Myers knew it was time to leave when he looked out into the forest and spotted bright red flames towering skyward. Then came a blinding cloud of smoke and a deafening roar as the fire ripped through the wilderness.

 “You can hear just this consumption of fuel, just crackling and burning. And the hardest thing is ... you couldn’t see it because at the point the smoke was that thick,” he said.

Myers was among about 3,500 people who desperately fled the fire after it erupted in a tinder-dry canyon northwest of Boulder on Monday and swallowed up dozens of homes.

Authorities said Tuesday night they counted 92 structures that have been destroyed and another eight that have been damaged. It’s unclear how many were homes.

Gov. Bill Ritter declared a state of emergency Tuesday as officials nearly doubled the fire’s estimated size to more than 18 square kilometers, based on better mapping. At one point, the plume from the fire could be seen in Wyoming, 145 kilometers to the north.

‘Low Pants, No Chance’

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – A Baton Rouge Metro Council member wants the parish to support a public awareness campaign against men who wear their pants so low that their boxer shorts show.

Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle has a slogan for the campaign: “Low pants, no chance.” Her resolution, on the agenda for discussion Wednesday, says wearing saggy pants creates negative stereotypes and that “those who wear saggy pants are hurting their chances of becoming employable, educated, and productive citizens.”

Marcelle said she’d like to pass a law allowing police to cite and fine people for wearing saggy pants that expose their underwear, but recognizes that constitutional issues prevent such a law.

500 Rapes in Congo Bared

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The United Nations reported Tuesday that more than 500 systematic rapes were committed by armed combatants in eastern Congo since late July — more than double the number previously reported — and accepted partial responsibility for not protecting citizens.

UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Atul Khare told the UN Security Council that at least 267 more rapes occurred in another area of the country’s east, in addition to 242 rapes earlier reported in and around Luvungi, a village of about 2,200 people located about 30 kilometers from a UN peacekeepers’ camp.

Rape as a weapon of war has become shockingly commonplace in eastern Congo, where the government army and UN peacekeepers have failed to defeat the few thousands rebels responsible for a protracted conflict fueled by vast mineral reserves.