At least 22 people have died and 52 are missing after a landslide late Saturday afternoon in Las Tejerias, an industrial town about 50 kilometers southwest of Caracas, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced on Sunday. .
The heavy rains that have been falling for weeks have already caused the death of 13 people across the country.
“Five streams overflowed and […] here we see very significant damage, human losses: to date, we have already found 22 dead, there are more than 52 missing people, ”Ms. Rodriguez told local media.
In Las Tejerias, AFP journalists were able to see a large number of destroyed houses, completely devastated businesses, mudslides, and in the streets, the presence of trees dragged down from the mountain.
A thousand people are taking part in the rescue operations, Interior and Justice Minister Remigio Ceballos Ichaso told AFP, who went there to assess the damage.
Carmen Melendez has lived in this city of more than 50,000 inhabitants for 55 years. “The city is lost, Las Tejerias is lost,” she says.
In 1999, huge landslides claimed 10,000 lives in the state of Vargas, 25 kilometers north of Caracase.
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