Rescue workers look for survivors at a mudslide area in Nahuala in western Guatemala on Sunday. (Moises Castillo/Associated Press)

Searchers in Guatemala pulled more bodies from a mud-covered highway on Monday as more mudslides, after days of torrential rain, raised the death toll to 45.

Authorities said 25 people are confirmed dead and at least 15 are believed to be still buried beneath the debris in the village of Nahuala, where a first mudslide buried a bus and other vehicles, then a second one turned would-be rescuers into victims.

At least 20 other people died over the weekend elsewhere in the country as a tropical depression saturated the ground and set off more than a dozen landslides, according to the national disaster agency. The most recent slide, on a highway in northern Guatemala, killed one person and injured 26 on Sunday.

At least five bodies were pulled out Monday, said Mario Cruz, a spokesman for firefighters. Authorities initially said more than three dozen people were missing, but Cabanas said that estimate was lowered to 15 after further interviews with witnesses and relatives.

President Alvaro Colom, who visited the area and declared Monday a national day of mourning, said Guatemala must improve its disaster-prevention efforts.

All told, there were 15 landslides at different spots along the Inter-American Highway — a section of the Pan-American Highway system — within in a 48-hour period, Communications Minister Guillermo Castillo said.