In recent weeks, the unusually heavy rains that have hit Venezuela have already claimed the lives of 13 people in other parts of the Latin American country.
Rescue crews continued to search for 56 people missing after the landslides that hit Las Tejerias, a city in central and northern Venezuela, killing at least 36 residents.
The country has been facing extremely heavy rainfall since September. Torrential rains in recent days have caused rivers and tributaries to overflow and landslides in Las Tejerias (population 50,000), which is located on the side of a mountain massif.
“Unfortunately, we have 36 people dead so far and 56 missing,” Interior Minister Remigio Sebagios announced via Twitter yesterday. The previous official count was 52 missing.
“We have deployed over 3,000” rescue crew members, the minister added. Previous announcements spoke of 1,200.
Las Tejerias was hit by torrents of mud that swept away everything in their path.
“We continue to search,” said a simple member of the rescue team. Firefighters with chainsaws cleared a road as uprooted trees, broken branches, debris engulfed parts of the city.
Hundreds of houses and shops were destroyed.
A soldier was shouting instructions to a group using a megaphone. “As they were clearing debris they saw blood,” the officer explained from a concrete rooftop on one of the few buildings in the area left standing.
Residents are actively involved in the search, using hoes, shovels and whatever else they can find, AFP found.
President Nicolas Maduro, who declared three days of national mourning the day before Sunday, went to the site of the disaster yesterday.
He said he would take with him “the pain, the cries, the despair, the tears of the people”, but promised the residents that “Teheria will rise again like the phoenix, Teheria will be reborn”, pledging to rebuild “one by one”. the houses and shops destroyed.
Vice President Delsy Rodriguez said 317 homes were “totally destroyed” and another 757 were “damaged” by the landslides.
Mr. Sebagios mentioned the previous day that the city had received a “record amount” of rain within a few hours, that the amount of precipitation exceeded what is usually recorded in a month. “The heavy rains caused saturation in the ground,” he estimated. Always according to the interior minister, the landslides were probably due in part to “climate change” and in part to the passage of Cyclone Julia, north of Venezuela, which ended up breaking up at midnight (Greece time) over Guatemala.
“I was caught by the waves and had no choice but to climb onto the roof and hold on to an antenna,” said 65-year-old Jose Santiago. “The muddy water was up to my neck. I was ready (to die). If it had lasted another five minutes, I would have drowned.”
“Tejerias will never be the same again, we’re leaving, it’s impossible to recover,” Isaac Castillo, a 45-year-old trader, said in dismay.
Collection of essential items for the affected
In recent weeks, the unusually heavy rains that have hit Venezuela have already claimed the lives of 13 people in other parts of the Latin American country.
Many shelters for the affected families were opened in Maracay, the capital of the state of Aragua, which includes Las Tejerias.
In Caracas and elsewhere, collection points for those affected have been announced. “I brought drinking water, powdered milk, sweets for the children and some clothes for the boys,” said Carla Cuervo, 39, a mother, leaving her package at the Ángeles de la Autopista (“Angels of the Highway”) collection point in Caracas . “I hope that more donations will be made. Because there are people who have nothing, nothing anymore.”
In addition to the devastation in Las Tejerias, flooding and landslides were also reported in several other locations over the weekend, especially in the state of Sulia, the heart of Venezuela’s oil industry, and in Choroni, on the country’s Caribbean coast.
In 1999, massive landslides killed some 10,000 people in the state of Vargas (north).
RES-EMP
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