One woman is killed and 17 people are missing as a bus carrying 18 people is swept away by a landslide near Manizales, in the Coffee Region department of Caldas, El Tiempo reported Thursday.
The bus, which was travelling from Bogota to Manizales, was seemingly forced off the road near and into a gorge in the area of El Diamante, where bad weather continued to hinder the rescue efforts.
“According to locals of the region there were two landslides. The first one took the bus and [the locals] heard the cries of the people,” said Juan Manuel Osorio, director of the Red Cross in Caldas.
The group of rescuers were able to locate an ambulance that had also been a victim to the landslide, with the the three occupants unharmed by the event. The patient, who had been on the way to hospital in Caldas with heart problems, was taken to hospital in Manizales.
The bus accident occurred simultaneously with another landslide elsewhere in Manizales, causing authorities to begin evacuating certain areas of the city.
The search for the missing 17 bus passengers continues, while departments all over the country prepare for the possible devastation that another rainy season threatens to wreak following the effects of the previous floods in 2010.