Mocoa – The number of dead in Mocoa has risen to 301, days after severe flooding and landslides hit the city in south-western Colombia, the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences (IML) said Wednesday.
The IML said Tuesday that 161 bodies have so far been returned to relatives.
Around 80 people are still missing, according to unofficial accounts reported online by the El Tiempo newspaper.
Water and sludge flowed into 17 of Mocoa’s 40 neighbourhoods early Saturday, sweeping away houses or burying them under debris, after heavy rainfall caused the Mocoa, Mulato and Sancoyaco rivers to burst their banks.
Thousands of helpers, including soldiers, have continued the search for survivors. Setting up emergency shelters and restoring the water and power supply have also been priorities.
Soldiers rescue landslide victims in Mocoa. Photo: Colprensa/Xinhua via ZUMA Wire Photo: Colprensa via ZUMA/dpa
Police say they have arrested more than 20 people accused of looting abandoned houses and shops.
Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos on Monday declared a state of emergency to release funds for rescue and reconstruction.
Mocoa, which has a population of 40,000, is situated in Putumayo state near the Ecuadorian border, around 630 kilometres south-west of Colombia’s capital Bogota.
Torrential rains have soaked South America’s north-western coastal regions for weeks, causing widespread flooding in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador that has led to dozens of deaths.
Since December, flooding in Peru’s Piura region, about 1,300 kilometres south of Mocoa, has killed 91 people and affected more than 740,000, according to government agencies.
The rains are linked to a “coastal El Nino” climate phenomenon of unusually high temperatures along South America’s Pacific coast.
-dpa
