Torrential rainfall from a fierce tropical storm has caused widespread flooding across Central America and Mexico, killing at least 236 people and forcing 225,000 others from their homes.

Rescue workers in Guatemalan lakeside resort of Santiago Atitlan pulled at least 55 bodies from a massive mudslide and 800 people are still unaccounted.

Many of the victims lived in flimsy wooden and tin shacks. More than 150, including an unknown number of tourists, are still missing.

Scores, possibly hundreds, more foreigners travellers were trapped at the Guatemalan resort of Panajachel, on volcanic Lake Atitlan whose turqoise waters turned black with mud.

With two other villages wiped out and flood waters up to two metres (6.5ft) high in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second-most important city, President Oscar Berger has asked Congress to declare a state of emergency

Rescue efforts were being hampered by mud, rocks and tree trunks blocking roads. Thick fog has grounded helicopters.

Tropical storm Stan - the successor to last month's Hurricane Rita which ravaged Texas - also left 65 dead in El Salvador, 11 in Nicaragua and 15 in Mexico, according to authorities in each country. Officials fear the death toll will rise as emergency workers search for hundreds still missing.

"I have nothing, the water took everything," said Basilio Garcia, weeping beside the body of his ten-year-old granddaughter in a fire station in Tecpan, west of Guatemala City.

Six corpses were laid out on the floor and surrounded by mourning townspeople in traditional Mayan dress.

Senor Garcia told Reuters how he saved his daughter from two mudslides that engulfed more than 30 homes in their nearby hamlet on Wednesday, but his granddaughter was killed and three other family members were still missing.

The tragedy brought back memories of Hurricane Mitch, which killed some 10,000 people in Central America in 1998.

"The area was cut off by mudslides. We understand there are a good number of tourists there," Defence Minister Carlos Aldana said at an airfield in Guatemala City.

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