Scenes of pain and despair were experienced this Tuesday after several homes and businesses were buried by a landslide in central Colombia.
The landslide, caused by heavy rains, has left at least 14 people dead and one missing.
It happened in Dosquebradas, a municipality in the metropolitan area of the city of Pereira, Risaralda, in the coffee zone of the South American country.
Authorities reported that another 35 people were injured.
Poignant images released throughout Tuesday show rescue teams and community members removing debris, saving pets and salvaging dead bodies.
The photographs also show how the mud covered the lush green foliage of the mountain.
According to stories collected by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo , at 6:26 in the morning mud, trees and stones buried several homes and businesses in the La Esneda neighborhood, in Dosquebradas.
“When we least expected the house began to shake and we felt the smacks of the rocks, we went out to see what was happening, but we did not expect one of these things. When we saw the river was overflowing, houses were flooded, others were on the ground. People began to screaming for help and we managed to see how that came and covered other houses,” María Camila Restrepo told El Tiempo.
Local authorities reported the evacuation of 52 homes located in the area of the landslide, where the Otún River also broke its course and flooded the area.
Dosquebradas is an important hydrographic center of Colombia. It derives its name from two streams that hang down from the mountain range and flow into the Otún River, one of the main ones in the region.
frequent landslides
Landslides are common in Colombia and houses built on steep slopes are at particular risk during the country’s rainy season.
The La Esneda neighborhood, for example, where the avalanche occurred this Tuesday, has been included since 1989 in a category of non-mitigatable risk, that is, there is no way to reduce the risk to avoid a disaster, as explained by the geologist Deliana Cardozo. Peláez to the newspaper El Espectador .
In 2019, a landslide left at least thirty dead in the city of Rosas, department of Cauca, in the south east of the country.
But the deadliest landslides in recent years were those that devastated Mocoa, in the southern department of Putumayo. There were 322 dead, 71 disappeared and more than 4,500 victims.
According to the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) of Colombia, this is the worst tragedy in the midst of the current rainy season.
Figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs published by El Espectador on Tuesday indicate that between January and November 2021, hundreds of natural disasters in Colombia left 83 dead, 133 injured and 14 missing.