Venezuela begins search after floods

"Taking into account the population density of affected areas, I believe we could be talking about 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 people who are beneath the rubble," Civil Defense agency Chief Angel Rangel told Union Radio

. But as the search for bodies continued, President Hugo Chavez said he would not speculate on the death toll. "We have seen and counted 342 bodies," he said in atelevision address Monday night. Chavez said a total of 68,670 people had been rescued and that operations were continuing. "We are still rescuing people, there are still people who are cut off," said Chavez, adding: "We will not rest until we have checked every house, every village, by land, by sea and by air."

Buses and trucks, motorcycles and Navy ships deployed to transport people in either direction could simply not cope with the mass of humanity that filled the muddied roads. Everywhere there were scenes of despair as elderly people sat on the ground, unwilling to go on, mothers cried for their lost children, and others hoped against the odds. Dust caked on his sweat-soaked body, Rovel Alvarado struggle to keep walking, carrying a massive load of food and supplies on his back while holding a four-year-old daughter in one hand.

"I am going to look for the rest of my family. I pray to God they are alive," he said. His own home in a hillside slum was destroyed by a "a rock the size of a truck."Nearby, a statue of the Virgin Mary stood in a sea of mud, facing a funeral parlor where a wreath, a broken coffin and blue plastic armchairs floated in a grotesque scene of devastation.

Shouts of "Agua, Agua" — Spanish for "water" — echoed across the area as relief teams lobbed bottled water from atop flatbed trucks. Rosa Diaz, 63, was determined to return to Caracas with her daughter and five grandchildren. "They cannot stay out there, there is looting, raping," she said. In the capital, gravediggers prepared for the arrival of 300 bodies from the state of Vargas, the worst affected.