At least 40 people died due to a landslide that devastated an indigenous community in northwest Colombia this Friday, adding to a list that so far has 30 injured.
Meanwhile, Gustavo Petro’s government promised “all available help” for those affected, according to a new assessment of the events, with the incessant search for more victims in the middle of the mud and water.
Due to heavy rainfallhuge portions of the mountain slopes adjacent to the road fell away and They buried the vehicles who were detained at the scene. A witness recorded the moment and the video circulates on social networks.
Furthermore, the collapse destroyed a home where at least 50 people had taken refuge waiting for weather conditions to improve. Among the fatalities are children and babies. A video is circulating on social networks that would belong to the moments prior to the arrival of the tragedy.
Avalanche in Colombia: Petro regretted the deaths caused by the water
“I deeply regret the death of 33 people in this tragedy, mostly girls and boys, according to preliminary reports from the territory. All our solidarity with the department of Chocó and the families of the victims,” he wrote on the social network Twitter) Vice President Francia Márquez.
On Friday night, the authorities had recorded 18 dead and 30 trapped under the rubble that closed the road that leads from the city of Medellín to Quibdó (northwest).
“All the help available to Chocó in this horrible tragedy,” President Gustavo Petro wrote on Platform X.
“Since last night we have been working hand in hand with emergency and relief organizations on the Quibdó-Medellín highway where a landslide was recorded. We deployed all our capabilities to rescue and help those affected,” the police also noted in X.
For its part, the Government of Chocó warned tonight that the conditions of the terrain in which the avalanche occurred “represent a danger to those carrying out search and rescue work” and decided to suspend them until tomorrow, when at 6 o’clock they are scheduled to begin. resume tasks.
The regional authorities have also stated that to avoid new emergencies, the road that connects Quibdó with Medellín will remain closed.
For more than 24 hours it has been pouring in that region next to the Pacific, where one of the rainiest jungles in the world is located.
Images shared on social networks and on television channels show the moment when a piece of mountain falls away and burying a row of cars, while screams are heard.
“Many people” got out of their vehicles and “took shelter in a house” near the municipality of Carmen de Atrato, “but unfortunately an avalanche came and buried them,” an official from the Chocó government told AFP on Friday.
According to authorities, there are several landslides that make the work of rescuers and firefighters who arrive in the area difficult.
“There is even a call for them to arrive with helicopters because as there are several landslides, access is difficult,” added the head of the government.
Although Colombia is going through a dry season, the state Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam) had earlier reported heavy rains in some departments of the Pacific and the Amazon.
The governor of Chocó, Nubia Carolina Córdoba, regretted “with deep pain” the “serious emergency”, which cuts off the passage from the capital of that department to Medellín, the second city of Colombia.
Source: Ambito
