Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will cut a visit to New York City short to visit the town of Bello, just north of Medellin, where authorities fear that a landslide killed 145 people.
Santos is in New York where he is attending a meeting of countries taking part in the International Criminal Court. He will cut this visit short to be able to make presence in Bello early Tuesday morning.
In the meanwhile, Santos sent his chief of staff and several ministers to the disaster site “not just to show solidarity to the victims and express our pain for this tragedy, but to at the same time be available to contribute, to help in whatever is needed, not just the aid to families who are affected, but also to help the local authorities.”
Interior and Justice Minister German Vargas Lleras, who also traveled to the Antioquia department, declared Bello a “calamity area,” which frees funds for immediate help to those who lost their homes or can’t return home because of the imminent threat of more landslides.
Most rescue work is done manually, using only spades and picks to increase the chance of finding someone alive.
At 3PM, rescue workers at the site had been able to recover the lifeless bodies of 20 victims from the area where the day before 50,000 cubic meters of earth destroyed some 45 homes. 124 people were still missing at that hour and are feared to be dead under the rubble.
The Bello landslide could nearly double the amount of dead from floods and landslides caused by this year’s rainy season. On Sunday, the official number of people killed by the extreme weather conditions was set at 175.
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