BELLO, Colombia, (Reuters) – Rescuers pulled out more bodies on Tuesday from a huge mudslide in northwestern Colombia where more than 100 people were buried as the government tried to cope with nationwide damage from heavy rains and flooding.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos visited the site in Bello, Antioquia province, where more than 38 bodies have been recovered so far even as rains hindered recovery efforts and forced evacuations over the risk of more landslides.
The disaster in Bello on Sunday was the worst in Colombia’s wet season so far as rains batter much of the country, causing floods that have killed more than 200 people, damaged crops and livestock and forced around 1.7 million from their homes.
“The mudslide in Bello is just the most dramatic episode of a disaster without precedent in Colombia,” Santos said in a national TV and radio broadcast. “The crisis we are living now because of the harsh winter is our worst natural tragedy.”
Local authorities began to evacuate other areas that are in danger of mudslides while hundreds of local residents in Bello desperately joined the search for loved ones.
Santos said his administration would declare a limited state of emergency for 30 days over recent disasters to allow Congress and the government more flexibility to securing funding for rescue and reconstruction.
He said the government would spend around $550 million on disaster relief, but he did not give further details on other extraordinary financial measures the government planned under the declaration of emergency.
The Inter-American Development Bank has offered the Colombian government a credit of $350 million to assist in managing the disaster. Bad weather has also hit the coffee, coal and agriculture sectors. Neighbouring Venezuela is suffering as well, with thousands of people displaced.
The heavy rains in recent months are due to the La Nina weather phenomenon, which the government’s weather office expects to last into the first quarter of next year and could increase rainfall in the next rainy season at end March.
