Al Jazeera’s Martin Asturias, reporting from the scene of the incident near the town of Santa Maria Ixtaguacan, said that 23 bodies have been pulled from the mud so far.

Those buried Sunday were working to rescue victims of a previous landslide, which swept over a bus on Saturday and killed at least 12 people.

The government estimates that 38 people have died in the past two days of flood-triggered landslides, but the 12 people killed Saturday combined with the 23 bodies recovered from the second landslide amounts to a death toll of 45 - a number that is likely to rise as more bodies are found.