Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Red Cross pulls 71 foreign staff out of Yemen due to insecurity

People walk past a building one day after air strikes destroyed it in Sanaa, Yemen June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had pulled 71 international staff out of Yemen because of security incidents and threats, moving them to Djibouti.

The aid agency called on all parties to Yemen’s three-year conflict to provide security guarantees so it can keep running its surgical, water and food assistance programs there. Some 450 ICRC staff remain in Yemen, a spokeswoman said.

An ICRC employee, a Lebanese national, was killed on April 21 by an unknown gunmen who opened fire on his car in the southwestern Yemeni city of Taiz as he was on his way to visit a prison, it said at the time.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Larry King)

Iran stands ground on nuclear inspections as France warns of red line

The flag of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) flutters in front of their headquarters in Vienna, Austria June 4, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

By Francois Murphy and Sudip Kar-Gupta

VIENNA/PARIS (Reuters) – Iran will not cooperate more fully with atomic inspectors until a standoff over its nuclear deal is resolved, its U.N. envoy said, as one signatory warned Tehran against moving ahead with preparations to boost its uranium enrichment capacity.

Tehran meanwhile signaled its resolve to expand its enrichment capability by detailing plans to build advanced centrifuges – the machines that enrich uranium.

European powers have been scrambling to salvage the agreement they signed in 2015 since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out last month and said he would reimpose far-reaching U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Foreign and finance ministers from those three countries – France, Britain and Germany – have written to U.S. officials to stress their commitment to upholding the pact, and to urge Washington to spare EU firms active in Iran from secondary sanctions.

An Iranian withdrawal from the deal, which lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, would “further unsettle a region where additional conflicts would be disastrous,” the ministers wrote in the letter dated June 4 and seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Since the U.S. pullout was announced, authorities in Tehran have sent mixed signals on whether they believe the nuclear deal’s remaining signatories, which also include China and Russia, can salvage it.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said on Monday he had ordered preparations to increase uranium enrichment capacity if the agreement collapsed.

Tehran also informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog that polices restrictions placed on its activities under the deal, of “tentative” plans to produce the feedstock for centrifuges.

In Paris on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio that, while that initiative remained within the framework of the nuclear deal, it was unwelcome and risked sailing close to a “red line”.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter that Washington was aware of reports Iran plans to increase its uranium enrichment and he vowed not to allow Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon. “Iran is aware of our resolve,” he said.

Emphasizing that Tehran’s patience with European efforts to save the deal was not unlimited, its envoy to the IAEA said it had granted the three powers a few weeks.

“A few weeks means a few weeks, not a few months,” Reza Najafi said outside a quarterly meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors in Vienna.

STANDOFF

He also dismissed calls by the IAEA to go the extra mile in cooperating with the nuclear watchdog’s inspectors, telling reporters that, while the standoff over the deal continued, “no one should expect Iran to go to implement more voluntary measures.”

“But I should emphasize that it does not mean that right now Iran will restart any activities contrary to the (deal),” Najafi added. “These are only preparatory works.”

Iran’s nuclear chief on Wednesday inaugurated work on a facility in Natanz plant in central Iran designed to build advanced centrifuges and said the center would be fully functional in a month.

“After the supreme leader’s order we prepared this center within 48 hours. We hope the facility to be completed in a month,” Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said on state television.

Although the move was not a violation of the nuclear deal, it sent a strong signal to the West that Tehran would not succumb to the pressures.

Answering a question about a remark by Pompeo last month that Iran must halt all uranium enrichment, Salehi said: “We are far beyond that point. That man has been talking for himself.”

The agency has said Tehran is implementing its commitments, but also called for “timely and proactive cooperation” on providing access for snap inspections.

Diplomats who deal with the agency say an inspection in late April went down to the wire in terms of how quickly the IAEA team gained access to one site.

(Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier in Berlin, Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London and Eric Beech in Washington; writing by John Stonestreet; editing by William Maclean and James Dalgleish)

College pay-off seems elusive for many U.S. young people

FILE PHOTO: Graduating students arrive for Commencement Exercises at Boston College in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. on May 20, 2013. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Phot

By Gail MarksJarvis

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When Scott Petracco graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in biology eight years ago, he thought he would quickly get a job in a laboratory and pay off $30,000 in student loans.

But the country was just emerging from the 2007-2009 recession, and he could not find a job related to his degree. Now, at age 30, he works part-time as a kidney dialysis technician in Chicago for $15 an hour. Since that does not pay the bills, he also has a second job loading freight.

“It’s nothing very exciting, but it pays well,” said Petracco, who does not think the money he spent on college was worth it. Tormented by his student loans, he has given up on going to medical school or working in his field, and is devoting “every dime I have into getting rid of the debt within six years.”

Petracco is not unusual. A study by the Federal Reserve published in May found that half of people under 30 with bachelor’s degrees wonder if the money they spent on college was worth it. It is a stunning finding in the Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017 https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf, and evidence that the generation that finished college right after the Great Recession is turning into the “lost generation” some economists predicted a decade ago.

Separate research by the St. Louis Federal Reserve has found that rather than bouncing back from bad economic times, the wealth of the millennial generation has decreased since 2010 and is far less than their parents’ generation at a similar stage in life.

“The generation born in the 1980s has not seen the college pay-off,” said William Emmons, an economist with the St. Louis Fed.

A key to this: Pay has not kept up with the cost of college borrowing.

Even though job opportunities have improved since the recession, Emmons thinks this year’s graduates could be weighed down by the same trends.

Although unemployment has declined to just 5.3 percent for young college graduates, the New York Federal Reserve reported in April that 42.5 percent of recent college graduates are underemployed, working in jobs that do not require college degrees.

While engineers are doing fine, with only 17 percent of industrial engineers underemployed, some 57 percent of liberal arts majors and 49 percent of biological science majors are underemployed.

That suggests that Petracco’s problem finding a job stemmed not just from the recession. So many people now go to college that competition for jobs is intense. And because so many people with college degrees are available to employers, “We should not expect to go back to the 90s with big increases in salary,” for graduates, said Emmons.

GENERATION GAP

Buyer’s remorse over the big college purchase among 20-somethings fits the times. There has been a tremendous change in prosperity since baby boomers went to college.

For the generation born in the 1950s and 60s, when far fewer people went to college, graduating from college lifted incomes for young adults 57 percent higher than people who did not go to college, according to the St. Louis Fed. Now it is just 43 percent higher for people born in the 1980s, who now in their 30s or late 20s.

There has been an even worse drop-off in the ability to build wealth among people who went to college. Baby boomers born in the 1950s bought homes shortly after college and quickly built wealth in their 20s and 30s. Their wealth was 185 percent more than peers who had not gone to college.

Today, after borrowing heavily for college and starting jobs with relatively stagnant pay, those born in the 1980s have wealth only 42 percent above peers who did not go to college.

Housing – both rentals and buying – is unaffordable in many major metropolitan areas. Freddie Mac recently reported that less than half of college graduates could afford to live independently in cities. Fewer own homes.

Those who do buy often do so with help from a parent or grandparent, said Dana Bull, a 29-year-old Boston real estate agent who caters to her generation.

Having a college degree has not helped some of her peers, who struggle to get jobs. Then, Bull said, they compound the problem by adding on more debt for master’s degrees.

(Editing by Beth Pinsker and Frances Kerry)

Search for survivors temporarily suspended near Guatemala volcano

he Fuego volcano is seen from San Miguel Los Lotes in Escuintla, Guatemala June 7, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

AN MIGUEL LOS LOTES, Guatemala (Reuters) – Authorities on Thursday temporarily suspended the search for survivors near Guatemala’s Fuego volcano following deadly eruptions due to hazardous conditions for rescue workers, a spokesman for national disaster management agency CONRED said.

Residents are seen amidst ashes as heavy machinery removes ash from a road at an area affected by the eruption of the Fuego volcano at El Rodeo in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. Picture taken June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Residents are seen amidst ashes as heavy machinery removes ash from a road at an area affected by the eruption of the Fuego volcano at El Rodeo in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. Picture taken June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

The death toll from the eruptions that began on Sunday now stands at 100, according to police.

Rescue workers have been searching frantically for survivors and victims in the lava-ravaged landscape left by the eruptions, which showered volcanic ash over nearby towns and spewed pyroclastic flows throughout the area.

CONRED spokesman David de Leon announced the suspension of rescue work and recommended that residents stay away from the still-dangerous area.

The suspension may be lifted if conditions on the ground improve, he added.

The active volcano is located about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of the capital, Guatemala City.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Poll shows Turkey presidential vote going to second round

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends a meeting with Chairman of the Tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina May 20, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

By Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA (Reuters) – Tayyip Erdogan is seen falling short of a first-round victory in Turkey’s presidential election and his ruling AK Party is forecast to lose its parliamentary majority in the June 24 vote, a survey by pollster Gezici showed on Thursday.

Erdogan called the snap elections in April, more than a year early, saying Turkey needs to switch to a powerful executive presidency to tackle economic and security challenges. The new presidential powers were narrowly approved last year.

Gezici’s survey of 6,811 respondents, conducted between May 25-26, showed Erdogan receiving 48.7 percent of votes in the first round of presidential election, with the main opposition candidate, Muharrem Ince, getting 25.8 percent.

Erdogan and Ince were followed by Meral Aksener, a former interior minister who founded the Iyi Party last year after being sacked from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which has entered an election alliance with the AK Party. Aksener was seen getting 14.4 percent of votes, Gezici’s poll showed.

The jailed candidate of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, has 10.1 percent support, the poll showed.

Even though he is campaigning from behind bars, Demirtas, one of Turkey’s best-known politicians, is expected to boost his party’s chances of overcoming a 10 percent threshold needed to enter parliament.

PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY

Erdogan, modern Turkey’s most successful and divisive leader, and his AK Party have ruled for more than 15 years, and currently hold a parliamentary majority.

However, Gezici’s poll showed that the AK Party’s alliance with the nationalist MHP would fall short of a majority in the 600-seat assembly, with 48.7 percent of the votes.

Their rival alliance, composed of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Iyi Party and Saadet Party, is seen receiving 38.9 percent of votes, the poll showed, while the HDP was seen at 11.5 percent.

The HDP’s performance in the parliamentary polls is important because it does not have an alliance partner. If it fails to cross the 10 percent threshold, its seats go to the party that came second in districts where the HDP came first.

That would most likely benefit Erdogan’s ruling AKP, which is also strong in the east and the mainly Kurdish southeast.

“According to the poll, the ruling party is seen losing the parliamentary majority. Despite the alliances that will be in parliament after the June 24 elections, no single party or alliance is seen reaching a simple majority,” the poll said.

However, the polling group’s chairman Murat Gezici told Reuters that voters were not sympathetic toward alliances and that this caused the distribution of votes to vary in the poll.

Independently, the AK Party is seen getting 43.1 percent, while their nationalist partner receives 6.2 percent, still falling short of a majority in parliament but marginally higher than what the poll shows as support for their alliance.

The elections will herald Turkey’s switch to the new presidency championed by Erdogan, but an ailing economy and a deteriorating record on human rights and freedoms after a 2016 coup attempt have led to a shift of sentiment in voters, the poll showed.

“These general and presidential elections will be the most difficult elections in Turkey’s past 20 years,” Gezici said.

(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans)

As Kim arrives in Singapore, no North Korean comrades in sight

FILE PHOTO: A view of the entrance of the North Korean embassy in Singapore May 24, 2018. Picture taken May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo

By John Geddie and Fathin Ungku

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Stella Choi, the principal of a Korean language school in a drab tower in downtown Singapore, works just across the elevator lobby from the modest suites that make up North Korea’s embassy.

Yet the South Korean national, who runs the iSpeak Korean Language Centre, says she has neither seen nor spoken to any of her Northern neighbors or people entering the embassy since they moved in two years ago.

Choi’s experience is consistent with the extremely low profile Singapore’s small community of North Koreans has kept in recent years as diplomatic pressure on their home country made traveling and working abroad increasingly difficult.

But they have disappeared in recent years as U.N. sanctions tightened around Pyongyang, and Singapore has been among the countries that have dutifully implemented resolutions to cut trade ties, ban transactions with North Korean banks and cancel the work passes of its citizens.

North Korea’s place in the world – and that of its diaspora – comes into focus in Singapore next week, when the city-state hosts the first ever summit between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will discuss ending the North’s nuclear weapons and missile programs in return for diplomatic and economic incentives.

Singapore, a global trading and financial hub, was once home to a close-knit group of a few dozen North Korean diplomats and businessmen responsible for channelling money, fuel and goods to the secretive state.

While it still maintains diplomatic ties, North Korea’s embassy has moved from a three-storey property in a lively neighborhood of heritage shop-houses to its present unassuming home.

“I hope to see them one day. Since the North and South Korean relationship is getting better, I may even be able to speak to them,” said Choi.

Reuters has visited the North Korean embassy multiple times over the last year but on all but one occasion there appeared to be nobody there. Reuters did once meet the embassy’s first secretary, Ri Pyong Dok, while he was entering the embassy in February 2017, but he declined comment.

In a call in recent weeks to the embassy to ask about preparations for the summit, a North Korean staffer also declined comment.

The Singapore foreign ministry has four North Korean officials and their spouses in its list of diplomatic and consular staff as of June 2018.

STRATEGICALLY MANAGED

“The sanctions and the pressure that was put on by the U.S. and its allies were definitely … key motivating forces that encouraged him (Kim Jong Un) to consider engaging more, and to come out and have this summit,” said Nicholas Fang, director of security and global affairs at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

North Korea has always strategically managed its expatriate population, mainly sending them to allies like China and Russia, where they feel they will not be corrupted by Western ideals.

Singapore is probably the most diplomatically neutral place where they’ve based people historically – more for trade reasons than diplomacy, said John Kim, a Korean-American businessman who advises a non-profit offering training in entrepreneurship and business in North Korea.

Kim said he had not spoken to a North Korean in Singapore in around five years. The last person John Kim spoke to told him there were around 50 North Koreans operating in the city-state, mainly in industries like shipping, although there are no official figures of the size of the community.

In contrast, there are about 20,000 South Koreans living in Singapore.

In November, Singapore suspended all trade with North Korea to comply with tightening U.N. regulations.

In March, Singapore said it had revoked the work permits of all remaining North Koreans in the country.

A long-time South Korean resident of Singapore who did not want to be named said until a few years ago, groups of North Koreans would come into South Korean-run restaurants for barbecue dinners and would sometimes strike up casual conversations with the South Korean patrons or staff.

They would be relaxed and friendly, though there was occasionally tension in the banter, reflecting the rivalry between the two states, he said.

One more prominent North Korean figure in Singapore was Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of the current leader who was assassinated at Kuala Lumpur airport last year.

A socialite, he often drank at a plush bar on the top of the iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel or in one of the city-state’s many karaoke joints, according to one of his friends, who declined to be named, citing safety reasons.

The friend said Kim Jong Nam was down-to-earth, self-deprecating and open to jokes about his family connections.

“We would always ask, ‘So Kim, what do you think about communism?’ and he’s was always saying, ‘I’m all about peace and love.”

(Reporting by John Geddie, Fathin Ungku and Jack Kim; Editing by Sam Holmes and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Thousands of refugees to return to Syria from Lebanon soon

Syrian refugees who fled to Lebanon hold Syrian flags as they arrive at Syrian-Lebanese border of Jdaydet Yabous, Syria, April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Around 3,000 refugees in Lebanon are expected to go back to Syria in the coming week, a local official said on Thursday, a week after Lebanon said it was working with Damascus for the return of thousands of refugees who want to return.

The refugees living in a border town in northeast Lebanon will travel around 20 km (12 miles) over mountains that have separated them from their homes in Syria’s western Qalamoun region for years.

Bassel Hujeiri, mayor of Arsal town, told Reuters by phone the refugees had asked to go back to Syria.

As the Syrian army backed by Iran and Russia has recovered more territory, Lebanon’s president and other politicians have called for refugees to go back to “secure areas” before a deal to end the war. This is at odds with the international view that it is not yet safe.

Lebanon hosts around 1 million registered Syrian refugees according to the United Nations, or roughly a quarter of the population, who have fled the war since 2011. The government puts the number at 1.5 million and says their presence has strained public services and suppressed economic growth.

Hujeiri said the return would likely happen before the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which this year will fall around June 14. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and depends on the sighting of the moon.

Last Thursday, the head of Lebanon’s General Security agency Major General Abbas Ibrahim told reporters that Lebanon is working with Damascus for the return of thousands of refugees who want to go back to Syria.

On Wednesday Lebanese President Michel Aoun asked a European Parliament delegation to persuade European nations to help with returning refugees in Lebanon to Syria.

The U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR told Reuters it was not involved in this transfer, but has spoken to some of the refugees as part of its global policy of making sure people who want to return home have the documentation needed to re-establish themselves and access services.

In April, several hundred refugees were bussed back to Syria from the Shebaa area of southern Lebanon in an operation overseen by General Security in coordination with Damascus.

(Reporting by Dahlia Nehme; Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Atlanta officials reveal worsening effects of cyber attack

(Reuters) – The Atlanta cyber attack has had a more serious impact on the city’s ability to deliver basic services than previously understood, a city official said at a public meeting on Wednesday, as she proposed an additional $9.5 million to help pay for recovery costs.

Atlanta’s administration has disclosed little about the financial impact or scope of the March 22 ransomware hack, but information released at the budget briefings confirms concerns that it may be the worst cyber assault on any U.S. city.

More than a third of the 424 software programs used by the city have been thrown offline or partially disabled in the incident, Atlanta Information Management head Daphne Rackley said. Nearly 30 percent of the affected applications are considered “mission critical,” affecting core city services, including police and courts.

Initially, officials believed the reaches of the cyber assault on city software was close to 20 percent and that no critical applications were compromised, Rackley said.

“It’s a lot more… it seems to be growing every day,” she told the Atlanta City Council, which must vote on a fiscal 2019 budget by the end of the month.

Rackley anticipated an additional $9.5 million would be needed by her department in the coming year due to the hacking. That would be a sharp increase from the $35 million Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms suggested for the technology department in her budget pitch, which was delayed in the cyber incident.

Top city officials are still discovering the extent of the ransomware incident, in which hackers demanded $51,000 worth of bitcoin for the release of encrypted city data. Atlanta has said it did not pay the ransom.

Departments citywide, including municipal courts, told the council on Wednesday about their struggles to regain workplace normalcy since the attack. Interim City Attorney Nina Hickson said her office lost 71 of 77 computers as well as a decade of legal documents.

The discussions came two days after Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields told local television news station WSB-TV 2 that the hack wiped out police dash-cam recordings. “That is lost and will not be recovered,” she said in a brief televised interview.

City Council President Felicia Moore told the administrators she was frustrated by how little she has been told about the cyber attack investigation. Many times, Moore said, she learns about developments in the news. “Something has to give,” she said.

Councilman Howard Shook, chair of the finance committee, asked how much attack-related costs have risen elsewhere in the city since the budget proposal was put together.

“A lot of water has gone over the dam since then,” Shook said.

In response, administrators said they were still working on determining total costs. Deputy Chief Financial Officer John Gaffney, whose department help’s develop the mayor’s budget proposal, said the city was still in the “response phase.”

(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.S. says diplomats in China hit by mystery illness

A woman shields herself from the rain as she walks past U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China June 7, 2018. REUTERS/Sue-Lin Wong

By Lisa Lambert and Sue-Lin Wong

WASHINGTON/GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department has brought a group of diplomats home from Guangzhou, China, over concern they were suffering from a mysterious malady that resembles a brain injury and has already affected U.S. personnel in Cuba, a spokeswoman said.

After confirming one government employee had “suffered a medical incident” in the southern Chinese city, the department deployed a team to screen employees and family members at its consulate there, spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement on Wednesday.

“As a result of the screening process so far, the department has sent a number of individuals for further evaluation and a comprehensive assessment of their symptoms and findings in the United States,” Nauert said.

“Medical professionals will continue to conduct full evaluations to determine the cause of the reported symptoms and whether the findings are consistent with those noted in previously affected government personnel or possibly completely unrelated,” she said.

The New York Times reported that the State Department had evacuated at least two Americans who fell ill after hearing strange noises in China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Thursday that as far as she was aware, the government had not had any formal communication with U.S. officials on any new cases, and that it had investigated an initial incident.

“At present, there’s been no discovery of clues or the reason causing the situation the United States mentioned,” Hua told a regular news briefing in Beijing, adding that China protected diplomats according to international convention.

“If there’s really a problem then the U.S. side can directly contact the Chinese side and communicate, and China will continue to conscientiously investigate and coordinate with a responsible attitude,” Hua said.

Four American members of staff at the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou referred Reuters to the Beijing embassy press office when asked about the situation.

A U.S. government official there reiterated that there had been only one confirmed case in China, announced last month, and the State Department was offering screening to anyone in the U.S. embassy or consulates in China who requested it.

In addition to the Beijing embassy and Guangzhou consulate, the United States operates consulates in the mainland Chinese cities of Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenyang and Wuhan.

Last year, 24 U.S. government employees and family members in Cuba displayed the symptoms, which were similar to those related to concussion and mild traumatic brain injury, according to the State Department.

The illnesses among the American diplomats stationed in Havana heightened tension between the old Cold War foes.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a statement on Tuesday saying the department established a task force last month “to direct a multi-agency response to the unexplained health incidents”.

“The precise nature of the injuries suffered by the affected personnel, and whether a common cause exists for all cases, has not yet been established,” Pompeo said.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert in WASHINGTON and Sue-Lin Wong in GUANGZHOU; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Peter Cooney)

Rescuers search for missing near Guatemala volcano as death toll climbs

Soldiers search for remains at an area affected by the eruption of the Fuego volcano at El Rodeo in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Fabricio Alonzo

By Sofia Menchu

SAN MIGUEL LOS LOTES, Guatemala (Reuters) – Rescuers scoured a lava- and ash-ravaged landscape in Guatemala for a third straight day on Wednesday in search of survivors and victims of Fuego volcano’s calamitous eruption, which has killed at least 99 people.

Volcan de Fuego, which means “Volcano of Fire,” exploded on Sunday in its most devastating eruption in more than four decades, showering ash on a wide area and sending rapid pyroclastic flows through nearby towns.

Volcanic rocks are seen around houses after the eruption of the Fuego volcano at El Rodeo in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Volcanic rocks are seen around houses after the eruption of the Fuego volcano at El Rodeo in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

The volcano shot thick plumes of ash miles (km) into the sky that rained down on nearby towns and a thick smoldering layer of ash and volcanic rock blanketed the tiny hamlet of San Miguel Los Lotes, with only the roofs of some homes sticking out.

The Central American country’s disaster and forensic agency Inacif on Wednesday afternoon raised the death toll to at least 99, up from 85.

Guatemala’s seismological, volcanic and meteorological institute Insivumeh heightened its warnings after the volcano erupted again on Tuesday, forcing evacuations and sending rescue workers scrambling for cover.

But by Wednesday morning, rescuer workers were back at work with pickaxes, metal rods and flashlights in hand, risking their own lives in search of victims or a miracle survivor. Bulldozers stood by to help.

“We can only work in places where we can stand on the roofs of houses … because the ash is very hot. There are places where you stick the pickaxe or rod in and we see a lot of smoke coming out and fire and it’s impossible to keep digging because we could die,” said 25-year-old rescuer Diego Lorenzana.

Rescue workers inspect a house at an area affected by the eruption of the Fuego volcano at El Rodeo in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Rescue workers inspect a house at an area affected by the eruption of the Fuego volcano at El Rodeo in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Elsewhere, rescuers plunged metal rods into the quickly hardening ash that sat atop what was previously a roadway in a desperate search for trapped vehicles, a video by local TV station Televisiete showed.

The extent of the devastation was widespread.

An elderly man, who was featured in a video shortly after the eruption that showed him in a state of shock, caked from head to toe in ash and mud, died from the severe burns he suffered.

Guatemala’s national disaster management agency, CONRED, said 1.7 million people have been affected by the volcanic eruption and over 12,000 have been evacuated.

Volunteers were also distributing humanitarian aid, including clean drinking water, to victims.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said they have released more than 250,000 Swiss francs ($253,446) from its global emergency fund to support frontline emergency efforts.

These funds will help “Guatemala Red Cross support 3,000 of the most vulnerable survivors for three months,” they added.

A child sits sleep in a provisional shelter after the eruption of the Fuego volcano has damaged her community in a local school in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

A child sits sleep in a provisional shelter after the eruption of the Fuego volcano has damaged her community in a local school in Escuintla, Guatemala June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

In addition, the Mexican government said on Wednesday evening that it would send a team of medical specialists and, if necessary, transfer victims to hospitals in Mexico.

The 3,763-meter (12,346-feet) Volcan de Fuego is one of several active volcanoes among 34 in the Central American country. It lies near the colonial city of Antigua, a UNESCO world heritage site that has survived several major eruptions.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Anthony Esposito and Julia Love; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Sandra Maler)