The official count of confirmed deaths grew to 15 Friday afternoon, one day after a 6.1-magnitude earthquake shook north central Costa Rica, a government emergency official said. Reinaldo Carballo, a spokesman for the federal Commission for National Emergencies, said the updated death toll came from information given to the agency by Costa Rica Vice President Rodrigo Arias. In addition, Carballo said, rescuers were trying to reach 300 tourists stranded in a hotel in Varablanca. Carballo said he did not know the tourists' nationalities or the name of the hotel. There were conflicting reports on the number of dead from Thursday's earthquake. The Commission for National Emergencies had issued a news release earlier Friday saying the quake had killed four people. Also earlier Friday, Red Cross official Milton Chaverri told CNN there were 14 dead and 22 missing. Red Cross spokeswoman Fiorella Vilca said Friday afternoon there were nine dead and 42 missing. The discrepancy may result from the fact that the Commission for National Emergencies reports only deaths it has confirmed, Carballo said. About 32 people were injured, he said. On Friday, the U.S. government dispatched a team of 34 U.S. military personnel and four helicopters from Honduras-based Joint Task Force-Bravo to Costa Rica to assist. Survivors described the suddenness and brutality of the quake. Landslides, tumbling rocks and collapsed buildings caused widespread devastation and death. "I saw how the earth moved and how it took my family -- my aunt, my cousin and her babies," Miguel Angel Marin told CNN affiliate Teletica TV. "It was very hard because I wanted to save them, but I couldn't." A sobbing Vilma Cambronero was asked what happened to her family. "Some are well," she said. "Others are buried." An unidentified woman told Teletica, "Everything started to move and everything fell on top of us. It was a miracle we got out."