Those killed by two landslides that occurred on a highway near the town of El Carmen de Atrato, in the Colombian department of Chocó (west), amounted to 23, while rescue authorities managed to remove 25 injured people, local authorities reported this Saturday.
““It is already a fact that there are 23 dead people and 25 injured people, who were transferred to all the municipalities of Antioquia,” reported the mayor of El Carmen de Atrato, Jaime Arturo Herrerato the Blu Radio station.
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The landslide occurred on Friday afternoon and buried several vehicles that were stopped, apparently due to an avalanche that previously blocked the highway between Medellín and Quibdó, the capital of Chocó.
In a video recorded by witnesses to the tragedy, a line of vehicles is seen stopped on the road, waiting for the pass to open, when suddenly the mountain collapses, burying them and their occupants.
There were also, according to witnesses cited by local media, fifty people who were taking shelter from the rain in a house when the avalanche hit.
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Rescue operations continue and the information is still partial, since it is a road that, although it connects Medellín with Quibdó, the capital of the Chocó jungle, is remote and the signal is intermittent.
The National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (Ungrd) reported 35 injured people who have been transferred to care centers and personnel from the National Army, the Colombian Aerospace Force, the Civil Defense and the Fire Department are working in the area.
The governor of Chocó, Nubia Carolina Córdoba, reported last night that they are working so that emergency operations “manage to save as many lives as possible and be able to reunite the injured with their families.”