BOGOTA, (MILLAT ONLINE/APP/AFP): The giant mudslide that devastated the
Colombian town of Mocoa last week killed 312 people including 102 children, the government said Friday.
The mudslide hit a week ago after heavy rains caused three rivers to
flood, sending a sea of mud, boulders and debris crashing into the town.
In the latest toll report on Friday, the National Disasters Risk
Management Unit said 332 people were injured and at least 4,506 left homeless.
More than 300 people remain missing, President Juan Manuel Santos
said earlier.
Of those, the disasters unit said that four were foreigners: an
Ecuadoran, a Spaniard, a Briton and a German.
Mocoa, the capital of the department of Putumayo, was home to 70,000
people, about 45,000 of whom were affected by the disaster, according to the
Red Cross.
In an effort to speed up reconstruction, the government has declared
a 30-day state of economic, social and ecological emergency in Mocoa.
The measure allows the direct contracting of services without the
need for formal, more time-consuming procedures.
The hardest-hit areas were impoverished neighborhoods populated by
residents uprooted during Colombia’s five-decade civil war.
The mudslide turned Mocoa into a wasteland of earth, boulders and
debris.
Many survivors have had to take the disaster response effort into
their own hands, clawing through the mud for their loved ones, digging their graves themselves and defending what belongings they have left from looters.