Rescue teams continued their search on Monday evening, but were pessimistic about the chances of finding survivors among the 56 people missing in a mudslide that left at least 36 dead in Las Tejerias, a small town in north central Venezuela. .
This country has been facing exceptional rainfall since September. The torrential rains in recent days have caused the overflow of streams and landslides in Las Tejerias (50,000 inhabitants), located on the mountainside.
It will be “difficult” to find survivors after the disaster on Saturday, told AFP on condition of anonymity a member of Civil Protection. “It has already been two days and if they (the victims) did not die with the blows of stones and branches carried away by the current, they died of hypothermia”.
The provisional toll of “36 people dead and 56 people missing”, announced by Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos in the middle of the afternoon should therefore increase in terms of the number of dead.
“We are guided by the smell (of decomposing bodies) and today we smelled this smell in several houses,” said a firefighter, also on condition of anonymity.
3,000 men as well as many residents are taking part in the search using pickaxes, shovels and whatever else they can find, AFP noted.
Las Tejerias is overrun with mud and countless debris.
National mourning
Many houses and businesses were destroyed by the mudslide which swept away everything in its path: trees, cars, house walls, etc.
President Nicolas Maduro, who declared three days of mourning on Sunday, visited the area on Monday.
“We take with us the pain, the clamor, the despair, the tears of the people, but they must know that Tejerias will rise like the phoenix, Tejerias will be reborn”, launched the president, who promised to rebuild all the businesses and houses. destroyed.
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said 317 homes were “completely destroyed” and 757 “affected” by the landslide.
Mr. Ceballos had spoken the day before of “a record amount of precipitation” falling on the city, assuring that the average volume of water in a month had fallen in one day.
“These heavy rains have saturated the ground,” added the minister, attributing them to “climate change” and the passage of Hurricane Julia in northern Venezuela, which completely dissipated at 5 p.m. Monday over Guatemala. .
“I was trapped by the waves and I had no choice but to climb onto the roof and cling to the antenna,” says José Santiago, 65. “The water was up to my neck. I was ready (to die). If it had rained five more minutes, I would drown”.
“Tejerias will never be the same again, we are leaving, because it is impossible to recover from it”, dropped, upset, Isaac Castillo, a 45-year-old trader.
Collections for victims
In recent weeks, this atypical rainy season and these downpours that hit Venezuela had already caused the death of thirteen people in other regions of the country.
Several shelters for affected families have been set up in Maracay, capital of the state of Aragua where Las Tejerias is located.
In Caracas and elsewhere, donation collection points have been set up: “I brought drinking water, powdered milk, sweets for the children and some clothes for the boys,” explains Karla Cuervo, 39 years old, stay-at-home mom, dropping off a package in Caracas. “I hope there will be more donations. Because there are people who have nothing left, nothing left…”
In addition to the Las Tejerias disaster, floods and landslides occurred in several other places in the country during the weekend, notably in the state of Zulia, oil cradle of Venezuela, or in Choroni on the Caribbean coast.
In 1999, some 10,000 people died in a major landslide in the state of Vargas (north).