DEVISADERO, Guatemala -- Victoria Lopez cradles her 2-year-old granddaughter Jennifer, whose chubby cheeks, bloated legs and stunted growth make her look much younger than healthy children her age.

``She just sits there -- she doesn't move,'' Lopez, 39, said as she rocked the toddler in her arms. ``She's two and not even walking yet.''

Jennifer's condition is not unique among children in the hills of Guatemala's so-called dry corridor along the Pacific. The country's worst drought in 30 years has destroyed 80 percent of the region's crops and claimed the lives of more than a dozen children so far this year.

President Alvaro Colom declared the problem a ``public calamity'' and joined the United Nations in an urgent appeal for food aid. The World Food Programme and other agencies rushed food to this Central American nation, but they warn that aid will end by the end of September if more money is not made available.

Although they lack the gaunt frame of children suffering severe drought conditions elsewhere, the problem here is no less acute. Malnutrition has long been a major problem throughout the country, and rates are especially high in rural areas where the majority of the population is poor and illiterate.

GROWING PROBLEM

Almost half of Guatemala's children under 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition, among the highest rate in the world, according to UNICEF, the United Nations' agency that focuses on children and development.

Aid workers, food experts and government officials say the drought threatens to exacerbate the problem because it hit amid severe soil erosion, a major disease infestation, spike in food prices and a drop in remittances due to the global economic crisis.

``The problem of malnutrition won't be in just the dry corridor but in the whole country,'' said Luis Enrique Monterroso, a leading local nutritionist. ``There are indicators that next year will be worse.''

Since the beginning of the rainy season in May, the dry corridor has experienced sporadic rainfall because of El Niņo, a warming of surface waters in the Pacific that spawns severe droughts in parts of the world and floods in others.

Guatemalan authorities estimated that as many as 410,000 families have seen their crops severely damaged by the drought and run the risk of going hungry. Families have lost as much as 80 percent of their yearly corn and bean production -- a loss that officials put at about $10 million.

``The plants grew to about 30 percent of their usual size, but the grains didn't develop,'' said Maria del Carmen Fuentes, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Agriculture. ``The ears of corn looked like they were rotten because in order to develop they needed 90 days of rain in the warmer areas of the country and they barely got 10 days this year.''

The drought has shoved malnutrition back into the national spotlight. The issue emerged in August after the daily Prensa Libre reported that the drought led to what was initially described as a 40 percent drop in corn production.

The next day, the newspaper reported that the government hospital in Jalapa had documented 17 malnutrition-related deaths between January and July. About 130 children in Jalapa are at risk of dying from malnutrition, according to Catholic Relief Services.

In response to the reports, the government and aid agencies delivered emergency food supplies to more than 300,000 families throughout the country. And Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile and other countries shipped in beans, corn and other food staples.

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