Reuters is reporting on the deadly consequences of landslides in Guatemala occurring off season. Landslides in Guatemala are common, but they usually occur between June and November.

The victims were laborers returning home from coffee farms in a nearby department. They had apparently ignored warnings not to use the road, which was closed in December after a smaller rockfall killed two people.

“I was watching when it started. I thought it was an earthquake but the rocks just fell and fell and fell,” said laborer Leandro Salam, 26, who was working in a nearby cornfield at the time and ran over to help dig out bodies.

The mayor of San Cristobal Verapaz, Leopoldo Ical, told Reuters around 80 farmworkers had been traveling in two trucks when they reached the closed road near the hamlet of Los Chorros and continued on foot.

“The trucks stopped and the workers got out and continued on foot. They are the dead and disappeared,” Ical said.

I live in a region where tornadoes are common, but usually in early spring. There was a horrible wind storm the other night that woke the whole family up and left me terrified that we were in the middle of a tornado. I think we need to ask ourselves why all these normal weather events keep happening off season. Is there really nothing called Global Warming?

May the workers rest in peace.