Thirty-six people died in a landslide that destroyed Las Tejerias last Saturday in central Venezuela, Venezuelan Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos said on Monday (10) in a video posted on Twitter.

In Las Tejerias, Venezuela, the search for bodies continues. Photo: Reproduction/@cperezampueda/ND

More than 3,000 employees are involved in the rescue effort in the small town, 52 kilometers from Caracas, Ceballos said. The landslide occurred during an unusual rainy season exacerbated by La Niña, tropical waves and the aftermath of Hurricane Julia.

President Nicolas Maduro, who declared three days of mourning, visited the disaster area and greeted the affected residents. “We accept this pain, despair, people’s tears, but they need to know that Teherias will rise like a Phoenix,” said the president, who vowed to rebuild homes and destroy businesses.

The military directs the search by speakerphone. “They are clearing rubble and blood was visible,” an officer says from the concrete ceiling in one of the few buildings that survived the landslide.

“We are still searching,” echoes the lifeguard, who has been on the rescue mission since Saturday, when heavy rain hit the city of 54,000 surrounded by mountains.

The residents are desperately supporting this effort, along with the authorities, the military and the police, using picks, shovels and whatever they can find. The work did not stop overnight, continuing with the help of dogs and drones.

Another 13 people died in different regions of the country in the past three weeks, also as a result of the rainy season. “September was very rainy. We had historical records of rainfall in some areas,” Ángel Castodio, manager of the Venezuelan Institute of Meteorology (Inameh), told AFP.

Tons of sludge and logs make the job difficult. Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said yesterday that “in Las Tejerias it rained in eight hours, the rain that falls in a month.” “This is a climate crisis,” he said. She kept the balance of dead and missing in the latest official bulletin, released this afternoon, and reported that 317 houses were completely destroyed and 757 were hit by a landslide.

– Donations –

The government has set up shelters in Maracay, the capital of Aragua, said Minister Ceballos, who announced the distribution of 300 tons of food.

Two baseball stadiums, the largest in Maracay and Caracas, have received permission to be used as gathering centers. The Caracas metro, NGOs, foundations and supermarkets have made it possible for their offices to accept donations and send them to Teherias.

“I brought drinking water, powdered milk, treats (sweets) for the kids, and some clothes for the kids,” said Carla Cuervo, 39, as she donated her donation to a midwife station in the nation’s capital.

An AFP team went to Las Tejerias and saw the destruction of homes and businesses. The tragedy occurred after three hours of heavy rain, which began on Saturday afternoon. Several rivers overflowed their banks, carrying sediment, stones and trees from the top of the mountain.

The giant trees were swept away by the worst flooding the region has seen in 30 years, cutting off the city’s main road. Cars and debris from houses were also swept away by the current, which rose up to six meters at the structures closest to the riverbed. Many houses lost their walls, there is no electricity in the village.

A butcher shop that closed due to the pandemic and was due to reopen on Monday was covered in sediment that damaged refrigeration equipment and everything inside. “Teherias will never be the same again. Let’s go, because it’s impossible to restore it,” said trader Isaac Castillo, 45.

“The city is finished,” complained 55-year-old resident Carmen Melendez, who was waiting for news that her relative Margot Silva had gone missing. She lives in a nearby town and was in Las Tejerias to buy groceries. “We are seeing something like this for the first time. We know that we will win, but we regret the human losses,” he said.

The rains caused damage in several states. In Zulia, the birthplace of the country’s oil, authorities dealt with flooding in several municipalities over the weekend. At least 10,000 people were killed in 1999 by a major landslide in the northern state of Vargas.