The Department of Cundimarca issued a state of red alert to be able to tackle the consequences of the earthquake and the flooding of the Magdalena river. Cundimarca counts more than 7,000 evacuees.”We had to take this step, because we have over 7 thousand evacuees, both because of extreme rainfall and the earthquake,” said governor Andres González in Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.
Five fishermen never returned from their work in the Magdalena river and over 350 families had to be evacuated, aftere the river started flooding. They were evacuated to the Meta department, where the authorities were already trying to deal with the 2000 people that lost their homes in the earthquake.The flooding river also caused the authorities of Honda, Tolima, to issue a red alert, after 500 people were forced to leave their homes. The water level of the Magdalena rose ten meters there, firefighter Cesar Santana told Caracol Radio. The evacuees refuse to go to the improvised shelters, out of fear for plundering of their homes.The Municipality of La Dorada, Caldas is threatened to be flooded after the Magdalena broke from its original path and starting to flood the lower areas.Also in Santander authorities raised the level of alert, after thirteen villages in the municipality of Barrancabermeja were flooded. Several hundreds of hectares of crops were destroyed.Floods of the river Cauca flooded around 1200 houses in Caucasia and Nechi, Antioquia, affecting nearly 7000 people. More houses are threatened to be flooded, Caracol Radio reports.Landslides in several parts of the country, caused either by Saturday’s earthquake, Sunday’s aftershocks or the heavy rainfall have made it difficult for help to reach the victims of the violence of nature.One of the roads, connecting the south of Medellín to its airport in Rionegro was also blocked after a landslide covered the road with mud and rocks. Rescueworkers had to rescue people trapped inside the landslide. There have also been reports of minor landslides in the northeast of Colombia’s second largest city.
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