Up to 145 feared dead in Colombian landslide

Rescuers have recovered 12 bodies from a mudslide in northwestern Colombia that may have buried up to 145 people after weeks of heavy rain, officials said on Monday.

A sodden hillside collapsed on Sunday in Bello town, near Antioquia province's capital Medellin, burying about 50 homes.

"There are 145 people missing, including the 12 dead who have been recovered up until now," Antioquia Governor Luis Alfredo Ramos told reporters in Bello.

Rain and flooding have forced 1.5 million people from their homes this year in what the government calls the worst natural disaster in Colombia's history. The bad weather has also hindered the coffee, coal and agricultural sectors.

Neighboring Venezuela is suffering as well, with tens of thousands of people displaced and President Hugo Chavez blaming "criminal" capitalism for global climate changes.

Orfanely Madrigal cried as workers and residents slowly dug at the mud that buried her children, her mother and other family members in Bello.

"I foresaw this tragedy. I told my mother this was a high-risk area but nobody believed me," she said. "I've lost half my family - my mother, four brothers, nephews and my 13 and 10-year-old daughters," she said on local radio.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Sunday the number of homeless from the rains could reach 2 million.

Before Sunday's disaster, heavy rains had killed around 170 people this year in the Andean nation.

The downpours in recent months are due to the La Nina weather phenomenon, which the government's weather office expects to last into the first quarter of next year.