The search continued Sunday for loved ones in a small city in
southern Colombia after heavy rains sent floodwaters, mud and debris
surging through homes, killing at least 207 and leaving many injured or
missing.
The streets of Mocoa were covered in thick sand, mud
and tree limbs from the rivers and forest that surround the city. A lack
of drinking water and power forced authorities to suspend the search
and rescue effort during the night.
President Juan Manuel Santos, who has declared Mocoa a
disaster area, said Sundaythat at least 207 were killed but that the
death toll was changing "every moment." Authorities said another 200
people, many of them children, were injured and just as many were
unaccounted for amid the destruction.
Throughout the city, people dug through the ruins,
salvaging what they could of their possessions and looking for the
missing. Dozens of people were in the door of a hospital looking for
family members who were not on the list of those confirmed injured or
dead.
Others frantically knocked on the doors of neighbors, hoping to
find someone with information about their relatives. Search and rescue
teams also combed the rubble for signs of life.
"People went to their houses and found nothing but
the floor," said Gilma Diaz, a 42-year-old woman from another town who
came in search of a cousin.
The devastation was triggered by intense rains in
that caused the rivers that surround Mocoa, a city of about 40,000
tucked between mountains near Colombia's southern border with Ecuador.
Muddy water and debris quickly surged through the city's streets,
toppling homes, ripping trees from their roots, lifting cars and trucks
and carrying them downstream. Many didn't have enough time when the
floods struck before dawn to climb on top of their roofs or seek refuge
on higher ground.
Juan Chanchi de Ruiz, 74, said the noise of the surging flood woke
her up and gave her enough time to get to higher ground. Her house
wasn't damaged but the homes of several neighbors were heavily damaged
and many people were fleeing with their belongings as the river water
remained high.
"Around here, there's nobody. Everybody left," she said.
Authorities and residents in the city tucked between
mountains along Colombia's southern border spent Saturday tending to
victims, trying to find homes on streets reduced to masses of rubble and
engaged in a desperate search to locate loved ones who disappeared in
the dark of night. Authorities expect the death toll to rise.
Eduardo Vargas, 29, was asleep with his wife and
7-month-old baby when he was awoken by the sound of neighbors banging on
his door. He quickly grabbed his family and fled up a small mountain
amid the cries of people in panic.
"There was no time for anything," he said.
Vargas and his family huddled with about two dozen
other residents as rocks, trees and wooden planks ripped through their
neighborhood below. They waited there until daylight, when members of
the military helped them down.
When he reached the site of his home, nothing his family left behind remained.
"Thank God we have our lives," he said.
Herman Granados, an anesthesiologist, said he worked
throughout the night on victims. He said the hospital didn't have a
blood bank large enough to deal with the number of patients and was
quickly running out of its supply.
Some of the hospital workers came to help even though their own relatives remained missing.
"Under the mud," Granados said, "I am sure there are many more."
Santos blamed climate change for triggering the
avalanche, saying that the accumulated rainfall in one night was almost
half the amount Mocoa normally receives in the entire month of March.
With the rainy season in much of Colombia just beginning, he said local
and national authorities need to redouble their efforts to prevent a
similar tragedy.
The crisis is likely to be remembered as one of the
worst natural disasters in recent Colombian history, though the Andean
nation has experienced even more destructive environmental catastrophes.
Nearly 25,000 people were killed in 1985 after the Nevado del Ruiz
volcano erupted and triggered a deluge of mud and debris that buried the
town of Armero.
As rescuers in Mocoa shifted through debris, many residents were conducting their own searches for lost loved ones.
Oscar Londono tried in vain throughout the night to
reach his wife's parents, whose home is right along one of the flooded
rivers. He decided it was too dangerous to try to reach them in the
dark. So he called over and over by phone but got no answer.
Once the sun began to rise he started walking toward
their house but found all the streets he usually takes missing. As he
tried to orient himself he came across the body of a young woman dressed
in a mini-skirt and black blouse.
He checked her pulse but could not find one.
"There were bodies all over," he said.
When he finally reached the neighborhood where his
in-laws live he found "just mud and rocks." Rescue workers with the
military oriented him toward the mountain, where he found his relatives
camped with other survivors.
"To know they were alive," he said, "it was a reunion of tears."
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