Sharjah24 – AFP: Thousands of rescuers and residents were engaged in an increasingly desperate search through thick mud Wednesday for 56 people still missing after a devastating landslide swept through a Venezuelan town, killing dozens.

At the last official count, 43 bodies had been found after disaster struck Las Tejerias, a town of some 50,000 people nestled in the mountains about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the capital Caracas, on Saturday.

President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday the toll from Venezuela's worst natural disaster in decades was likely to reach 100.

Unusually heavy rains caused a major river and several streams to overflow, creating a torrent of mud that washed away cars, parts of homes, businesses and telephone wires, and felled massive trees.

The search for the missing continued, with emergency personnel using pickaxes, shovels and chainsaws to break through the hardening mud now covering the town.

The military dropped food parcels and water with parachutes from a helicopter in isolated areas, as a mass cleanup was under way to clear trees, rocks, cars, street lamps and electric poles piled up among thick mud layers in the roads.

Water and electricity had been partially restored.