Death toll after rain in Venezuela reaches 36; Hurricane Julia kills Caribbean

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Residents of the city of Las Tejerías, in Venezuela, spent this Monday (10) waiting for the work of rescue teams, who are looking for more than 50 people who have been missing since Saturday night (8), when floods and a large landslide land reached the region.

The death toll has reached 36, according to Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos, who coordinates local operations on behalf of the regime. The number of missing persons also increased from what had been recorded on Sunday, rising to 56.

Saturday night’s rains swept rocks from the slopes, caused at least five rivers to overflow and uprooted large trees in the Las Tejerías region, just over 50 km from Caracas.

Dictator Nicolás Maduro declared three days of mourning in the country and declared the area a disaster zone. News agencies describe the situation there as apocalyptic, with houses destroyed or engulfed in mud, gigantic logs blocking roads and cars swept away by the current. The waters reached heights of up to 6 meters.

Standing in front of what was her home, Jennifer Galíndez, 46, was waiting to hear from her husband, one of the people reported missing. Among the known victims of the floods is his granddaughter, who was not yet two years old.

“I can’t, because I close my eyes and that’s what I see. My granddaughter, where I put her. I left her there. [sobre o sofá] and I couldn’t get it out”, she says. “My husband was at the window. I couldn’t help him, the water took him away.” According to her, José Segovia, 55, suffers from severe diabetes.

Homes, shops and other facilities in the city were partially or completely filled with mud and water-borne debris. According to the official account, 317 homes were totally destroyed and 757 were affected by the landslide. The region remains without electricity or potable water supply.

On this Monday, at least, the sun was shining after several days of rain, helping the work of tractors that cleaned the roads. According to Ceballos, it rained in about eight hours what would be expected for a month, on average. At least 1,200 agents participate in rescue operations, aided by villagers with pickaxes, shovels or whatever they find. Work did not stop overnight, with the help of dogs and drones.

Another 13 people had already died in different regions of the country as a result of the rains. The atypical and extreme season was exacerbated by the La Niña phenomenon, tropical waves and the effects of Hurricane Julia.

In recent days, the phenomenon left 16 dead between Panama, El Salvador and Honduras before being downgraded to the status of a tropical cyclone – even so, in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, it has caused heavy rains in a swath of Central America south of Mexico. .

On Monday, Salvadoran authorities reported the deaths of nine people, including five military personnel — 830 had to leave their homes. In Honduras, five victims were confirmed, including a young woman and a four-year-old boy, who drowned after the boat they were in capsized in the sea near the Nicaraguan border on Saturday. In Panama there were two victims.

More than 1 million Nicaraguans were left without electricity after the regime decided to stop power supplies for security reasons. In all, 13,000 families had to leave their homes.

Julia is on the coast of El Salvador towards Guatemala, with winds that do not exceed 56 km/h. The assessment of meteorologists is that, although it is losing strength, the phenomenon still represents a threat, with heavy rains expected.

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