The hope of finding survivors among the fifty or so disappeared almost vanished on Wednesday October 12 in Venezuela after the landslide that occurred four days ago in Las Tejerias in the center-north of the country, causing a “hundredof deaths according to the authorities.
Forty-three bodies were found andthere is still a significant number of missing persons: 56 missing persons. We reach almost a hundred victims who have died in this tragedy, this natural disasterVenezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told state television VTV. The previous toll reported 36 dead and 56 missing. A three-day national mourning was declared on Sunday.
Return of electricity
“Tejerias will be reborn from pain, tragedy, disaster and Tejerias will shine again in life, in peace. Forward Tejerias!Added the president, who had made similar comments on Monday when he visited the site. Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said much of the city now had power again and telephone communications were restored.
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Some 3,000 rescuers continued the search on Tuesday evening at the site of the mudslide but were under no illusions. It will be “hardTo find people still alive, confided to AFP, on condition of anonymity, a member of Civil Protection. Dramatic scenes follow. Nathalie Matos, 34, points firefighters to the mud-filled room where she thinks her 65-year-old missing mother is.
Dramatic scenes
“I know she is there“, she says. “She was alone (at home). She called me. She said : “My daughter I’m drowning, the water has entered, get me out of here! Take me out! Take me out! Save me !”” “I tried to call her back, she answered but it was noisy…“, she continues. Five firefighters try to clear the mud with shovels. “The dog waved here in this area of what used to be the living room and the kitchen. It coincides with the indication given“says a firefighter.
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Despite the efforts, the search is futile. “I don’t know if I should scream, I don’t know if I should run, I don’t know if I should cry“, Despairs Nathalie Matos. A few meters away, another team is working on the site of a house washed away by the flooding river. The neighbors tried to reconstruct a plan of the house to help the rescuers.
“Guided by smell”
“We are guided by the smell (of decomposing bodies) and today we smelled this smell in several houses“Explained a firefighter, also on condition of anonymity. Monday at the end of the day, the rescuers were already pessimistic. “It’s been two days already and if they (the victims) did not die hit by stones and branches carried away by the current, they died of hypothermia“, specified a member of the Civil Protection.
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Venezuela experienced an unusual rainy season, which lasted almost the entire year due to the La Niña phenomenon. September was a record month for rainfall and in recent days torrential rains, attributed in part to the passage of Hurricane Julia further north, have battered the country. In the past three weeks, 13 people have died elsewhere in the country due to floods or landslides.
Worst disaster of the century
In Las Tejerias, “it rained in eight hours what it rains in a month“Said the vice-president on Sunday. The river, whose level rose by more than six meters, swept away everything in its path: trees, rocks, cars, lampposts, telephone pylons and entire sections of houses, many of which were built in risk areas. The city of 50,000 inhabitants spills over the sides of the mountains.
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The Las Tejerias landslide is Venezuela’s worst natural disaster since the turn of the century. In 1999, a major landslide in the state of Vargas, in the north of the country, killed some 10,000 people. Authorities have set up shelters for victims in Maracay, capital of Aragua, the state where Las Tejerias is located, and announced the distribution of 300 tonnes of food. Collection centers have also been set up across the country to collect donations.