>>>Deadly storm lashes Guatemala, Mexico/Officials say at least 12 die after torrential rains spark mudslides!!!<<<

GUATEMALA CITY - Torrential rains brought by the first tropical storm of the 2010 season pounded Guatemala and southern Mexico, triggering deadly landslides. The death toll stood at 12 early Sunday but authorities said the number could rise.

Agatha made landfall near the border of Guatemala and Mexico on Saturday as a tropical storm with wind speeds of up to 45 mph, then weakened into a tropical depression as it pushed inland.

But authorities warned that trouble was far from over as the remnants of Agatha continued to dump rain on vulnerable hillside and riverside settlements in Guatemala and southern Mexico.

"It has been downgraded to a tropical depression, but this means that the velocity of the wind has fallen, not the amount of rain," Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said late Saturday, adding that the rivers in the country's south were flooding or close to it.

Colom said 4.3 inches of rain had fallen in Guatemala City's valley in the past 12 hours, the most since 1949.

As of Saturday night, 4,300 people were in shelters and authorities said the number could rise as figures come in from around the country.

Landslides fatal
Earlier Saturday, Agatha's rains caused a landslide on a hillside settlement in Guatemala City that killed four people and left 11 missing, Guatemalan disaster relief spokesman David de Leon said. Most of the city was without electricity at nightfall, complicating search efforts.

Four children were killed by another mudslide in the town of Santa Catarina Pinula about six miles outside the Guatemalan capital. And in the department of Quetzaltenango, 125 miles west of Guatemala City, a boulder loosened by rains crushed a house, killing two children and two adults, de Leon said.

Calls to local radio stations told of many more landslides and possible deaths but those reports could not be immediately confirmed.

A three-story building in northern Guatemala City fell into a sinkhole but there were no reports of victims.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes offered to receive international aid at airports near their shared borders with Guatemala.