Hopes faded Tuesday of finding one of the 56 missing alive after a devastating landslide swept through a Venezuelan city with 36 confirmed deaths so far.
Neighbors and rescuers – some 3,000 police officers, soldiers and other professionals – have been involved in the increasingly desperate search among the fast-hardening mud, logs and rocks that were thrown at the town of Las Tejerias on Saturday.
Rescuers told AFP it was “difficult” to find survivors in the city, about 50 kilometers from the capital Caracas.
“I don’t know if I should scream, I don’t know if I should run … if I should cry,” Nathalie Matos, 34, told AFP of the frustrating wait for news of her 65-year-old mother’s fate, which she on the phone when the Flood came.
“She said to me, ‘Daughter, I’m drowning, the water got in, get me out, get me out… save me!'” Matos recounted.
“I tried to call her back, she answered but all I could hear was a hiss.”
A rescue team is at her mother’s muddy house.
“The dog made a mark here in this area that was the living room and kitchen,” said one firefighter, although all previous digs had turned up nothing.
“I know she’s there,” Mato insisted.
A few yards away, another team was surveying a piece of land where a house stood until Saturday, when Las Tejerias became the scene of Venezuela’s worst natural disaster in decades.
Neighbors helped reconstruct the floor plan to get an idea of ??where to dig.
A civil defense official, who was not authorized to speak, told AFP most of the storm’s victims died after being hit by logs, large rocks or other objects swept away by the raging waters, others from hypothermia.
Unusually heavy rains on Saturday caused a major river and several streams to overflow, causing a mud flood that washed away cars, parts of houses, businesses and telephone wires, and downed massive trees.
According to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, the area fell a month’s worth of rain in just eight hours.
The government has declared a three-day mourning.
– City “will be reborn” –
Experts say the storm was made worse by the seasonal La Nina weather system sweeping the region, as well as the effects of Hurricane Julia, which also claimed at least 26 lives and caused extensive damage in Central America.
Crisis-stricken Venezuela is no stranger to seasonal storms, but this was the worst so far this year after historic downpours claimed dozens of lives in recent months.
In 1999, about 10,000 people died in a massive landslide in northern Vargas state.
President Nicolas Maduro visited Las Tejerias on Monday and vowed to rebuild “every single” home and business destroyed by the unusual storm.
“We take with us the pain, the screams, the despair, the tears of the people, but they need to know that Las Tejerias will rise like the phoenix, Las Tejerias will be reborn,” he said.
According to Rodriguez, 317 homes were “completely destroyed” and 757 damaged by the mudslide.
The authorities have set up refugee centers in Maracay, the capital of the affected province of Aragua, and announced the distribution of 300 tons of food.
