40,000 volunteers have signed up to a Red Cross training scheme in which they will learn how to reduce the risk of disaster during Colombia’s second rainy season.
Cesar Urueña, Director of Relief at the Red Cross, on Sunday told Caracol Radio that if people knew more about risk-prevention, the number of tragedies suffered during the the rainy season would be reduced.
During the first rainy season in Colombia, which this year stretched from mid-March to early June, over 140,000 people were affected, according to the National Unit for Disaster Management (UGRD). By the beginning of June 699 homes had been destroyed and almost 15,000 damaged.
Urueña said that the Andean region is particularly vulnerable because of the high risk of landslides.
“The departments of Choco, Antioquia, even the Coffee-growing region, they all have big problems during the rainy season, mainly because of the lay of the land, but also because the people there don’t put the necessary preventative measures into place,” Urueña told Caracol Radio.
According to Ideam, Colombia’s institute for meteorology, the country’s second rainy season will begin in mid-September and run until the middle of December.
Sources
- En alistamiento 40.000 voluntarios de la Cruz Roja para actuar en temporada invernal (Caracol)
- Inicio de la Segunda Temporada de Lluvias 2013. (Government Press Release)
- Lluvias en Colombia dejan hasta el momento más de 140.000 afectados (El Espectador)