(Las Tejerías) Some 3,000 rescue workers continued the search on Tuesday at the site of the mudslide that killed 36 people in Las Tejerias, in north-central Venezuela, but with little hope of finding survivors among the 56 missing three days after the tragedy.
Posted at 1:23 p.m.
The authorities did not announce any new results on Tuesday since the last one announced late Monday by the Minister of the Interior, Remigio Ceballos.
It will be “difficult” to find people still alive after the disaster on Saturday, however, 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.
“I know she’s there,” she said. “She was alone (at home). She called me. She said to me: “My daughter, I am 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 made signs here, in this area of what was the living room and the kitchen. It coincides with the indication given, ”explains a firefighter.
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,” says 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.
“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 pessimistic. “It has already been two days 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.
“Tejerias will be reborn”
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.
In Las Tejerias “it rained in eight hours what it rains in a month,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said on Sunday.
“Venezuela is still in the rainy season. This year has been a bit atypical, with slightly higher rainfall averages in some parts of the country,” explains Angel Custodio of the Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology.
The river, whose level rose 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.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who has declared three days of national mourning, visited the disaster area on Monday. “We must continue the search to find the missing. The families’ plight is very painful,” he said, promising to rebuild destroyed homes and businesses.
“Tejerias will rise like the Phoenix, Tejerias will be reborn,” Maduro said.
The Las Tejerias landslide is Venezuela’s worst natural disaster since the turn of the century. In 1999, a major landslide in Vargas state, 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.