At least 14 people were killed on Tuesday and dozens were injured in a landslide in a locality in central-western Colombia, according to the latest official report.
Heavy rains caused at dawn the collapse of a mountain section on summary dwellings in the locality of Dosquebradas, in the department of Risaralda.
“We counted 14 people dead and 34 injured in this landslide,” said local official Carlos Maya.
Rescuers from the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management had reported in the early afternoon on Twitter a balance sheet of 11 dead and 35 injured.
AFPThey are supported by a hundred soldiers, said Colonel Raul Arevalo.
“There was a frightening noise, like a loud bang. We got out and saw the mountainside that had buried houses,” Dubernei Hernandez, a 42-year-old taxi driver, who lived near the scene of the disaster, told AFP.
"I went there and it was a disaster, people were trapped" under the ground, explained the resident who says he participated in first aid.
AFPAerial images taken by AFP show rescuers still searching for bodies that could be buried under the mud, and the remains of houses with pulverized sheet metal roofs.
Rescuers said they feared possible new landslides, and several families were evacuated as a precaution.
“We are currently managing the entire evacuation perimeter because we are still detecting instability in the terrain,” department official Alvaro Arias said on local radio.
