Mudslides kill 10 people in Costa Rica

updated 1:16 a.m. ET Oct. 13, 2007

LA FATIMA DE ATENAS, Costa Rica - Rescuers have recovered the bodies of 10 people, including two girls aged 11 and 16, killed by a landslide and were still searching Friday for more missing.

Torrential rains caused the hillside to collapse on Thursday, taking out a retaining wall under construction and burying several homes in La Fatima de Atenas, a hilly town northeast of the capital.

Red Cross official Freddy Roman said that authorities had found 10 bodies, including the two girls, and the organization estimated about 4 more people were still missing.

Officials said there was still a risk the hillside could collapse further, and they prohibited relatives from looking for the missing.

"We are calling the cellular phone of a nephew, and it is ringing, which fills us with hope that he could still be alive but unconscious," said Efrain Beita, whose home was partially crushed by the landslide. He, his wife, and his two children escaped alive.

However, his two sisters, an aunt and two nephews were in another house that was buried, and all five were missing.

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