A grief-stricken mother is crying for her dead children at the funeral in El Salvador Oct. 6, 2005. The pounding rains in El Salvador have already claimed 65 lives over the past days and the number of people evacuated reached 54,308.

The number of people killed by relentless downpours due to Hurricane Stan in Central America and Mexico rose to 225.

The death toll, however, could continue to climb, said the authorities Friday.

The death toll in Guatemala surged to 126 after another 47 bodies were found in the rural area of Santiago Atitlan.

Meanwhile, the pounding rains in El Salvador have already claimed 65 lives over the past days and the number of people evacuated reached 54,308, according to the authorities.

Salvadorean President Antonio Saca expressed his gratitude to the nations which have offered El Salvador assistance, including Mexico, France, the United States, Italy, Colombia, Germany, Panama and Venezuela.

The authorities confirmed that the death toll in Mexico rose to 18 as of Thursday and Stan also left at least two dead in Costa Rica, four in Honduras, including three children.

Hurricane Stan, ranking at category one, the lowest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, also affected Cuba, where no victims have been reported yet.

This year's Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, has been one of the deadliest and most active on record.

Hurricane Katrina, which slashed the US Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, was one of the worst natural disasters in the country's history, killing at least 1,212 people, displacing millions of others and costing the country up to 200 billion US dollars.

Source: Xinhua