The Colombian meteorological state agency (IDEAM) said Friday the hard rains which have left some 61,000 victims during March are not a part of the rainy season, which is due to begin sometime during April.
IDEAM said Colombia was not experiencing any type of natural phenomena at the moment and that the hard rains causing havoc mainly in Colombia’s Pacific were due to normal precipitation and high humidity.
Omar Franco Torres, the institute’s director, said the rains would last “for another seven days,” while stating that the month of March had been characterized by rainy days mixed with dry days.
MORE: ‘50,000 Colombians victims of heavy rains’: Red Cross
Torres said the “real” rainy season would start in April and end sometime during June. The rains in April are due to affect mainly Colombia’s Pacific and Andean regions.
So far in March, some 60,000 people have been affected by the ongoing rainfall. In the western Choco department, which has been hard hit by the rainfall, some 10,232 families have been affected, in addition to 544 houses destroyed and a further 299 houses damaged. Other parts of the country affected by the rains were the northern Sucre and Cordoba departments, with 1,850 and 1,275 people either displaced or harmed by the weather, respectively.
The Choco department, with some 50,000 victims, has been the most hard hit by the ongoing rains:
Sources
- Más de 60 mil personas afectadas por la primera temporada de lluvias (El Pais de Cali)
- En abril se iniciará primera temporada de lluvias en el país: IDEAM (Caracol Radio)