Neighbors helped rescue teams on Monday comb through mud and debris for signs of 52 missing after a landslide swept through a Venezuelan town, killing at least 25 people.

Another 13 people were killed in heavy rains elsewhere in the South American country, while four died in Central America after Tropical Storm Julia dumped torrential rain on El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Residents of Las Tejerias, about 50 kilometers from Caracas, used pickaxes, shovels and whatever tools they could find to dig through a thick bank of mud that had settled on the city on Saturday.

“It came too fast, we didn’t have time,” said 60-year-old resident Carlos Camejo of the mudslide.

“The city is lost, Las Tejerias is lost,” added Carmen Melendez, 55, who is desperate for news of the whereabouts of a missing relative.

Around 1,000 rescuers were involved in the effort, Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos told AFP, and the military was also involved.

In Maracay, the capital of the affected province of Aragua, the authorities set up shelters for the displaced.

The effort had continued overnight by lamplight using dogs and drones.

“We are working to find the people who are still missing, that is our main task at the moment,” Ceballos posted on social media late Sunday.

President Nicolas Maduro has ordered three days of national mourning after the region’s worst river flood in 30 years.

A flood of mud several meters deep destroyed homes and businesses in Las Tejerias, a town of 54,000 people nestled in the mountains.

The deluge swept away cars, homes, and telephone poles, and downed large trees, which the mud dragged through the city’s streets without electricity.

At last count, Ceballos put the number at 25 dead and 52 missing.

According to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, five streams in the region overflowed after “eight hours of rain typically fall in a month,” blaming the “climate crisis.”

Squads of workers with machines cleared the debris-covered streets while residents struggled to clear yards and yards of mud dumped in their homes.

Las Tejerias resident Jose Santiago spent 40 minutes clinging to an antenna as the flood swept away several homes. His house was left standing, but a torrent of mud swept through it.

“The river got me and all I could do was climb onto a roof and cling to an antenna,” says the 65-year-old.

Further away, four people died in Honduras and El Salvador as Tropical Storm Julia swept across Central America.

El Salvador Police said on Twitter that “at least two people died” after a house collapsed in the city of Guatajiagua, about 150 kilometers east of San Salvador.

Wilmer Wood, mayor of the eastern Honduran city of Brus Laguna, said two people died after Julia capsized a boat.

A third person is missing, Wood said.

The storm battered Nicaragua early Sunday as a hurricane with sustained winds of 140 kilometers per hour before weakening into a tropical storm but still battered parts of the country with heavy rains that caused flooding.

On Monday morning, Julia’s eye moved northwest along the coast of El Salvador and then Guatemala, according to the US National Hurricane Center, which warned of “life-threatening flash floods and mudslides” in Central America and southern Mexico.

The system was predicted to weaken into a tropical depression later Monday.

In Venezuela, baseball teams Tigres de Aragua and Caracas Lions used their stadiums as collection points for donations, and the Caracas Metro said it will also raise public collections for those affected.

The crisis-hit country is no stranger to seasonal storms, but this was the worst so far this year after historic downpours claimed dozens of lives in recent months.

In 1999, about 10,000 people died in a massive landslide in northern Vargas state.