A worker and an official were very close to being buried by a landslide caused by the strong winter, on the access road to the municipality of Santacruz, west of Nariño.
The incident occurred on the afternoon of this Saturday when a yellow machine was attending to a landslide and part of the mountain suddenly fell off, in the midst of fright for those who at that time were attending to the emergency caused by the prolonged winter wave that hits the entire the region.
(You can read: The Mayor of Cali declares the public calamity due to the intense winter)
The governor of Nariño, Jhon Rojas Cabrera, reported that a machinist from the Governor’s Office and the planning secretary of the Mayor’s Office “They were devastated by an earth movement, thank God they are alive but I want to call the community to common sense and understanding because the rainy phenomenon has been coming since last year and will last until May.”
The machine with which he was working to clear the road that leads from the Balalaika sector in the municipality of Samaniego to the municipality of Santacruz was buried by the landslide.
Both the operator and the official had to be transferred to the hospital in the municipality of Túquerres, where they received medical attention.
According to the sectional president, it was necessary to make the decision to close the access road to the municipal seat of Guachavez to automobile traffic, “after analyzing the risks that the road presents and after new landslides that have occurred in the last few hours.”
(You may be interested in: ‘Mano, we are trapped’, last voice of two disappeared in Pance)
He also declared that “we will work with the Mayor’s Office and the community to enable alternate routes and thus the municipality is not left incommunicado.”
Meanwhile, the port of Tumaco is going to be completed in almost two days, isolated from the rest of the department of Nariño, due to a large landslide that occurred on Friday on the road to the sea, near the municipality of Mallama, where the secretary of Government, Bayron Oliva, pointed out that the machinery works to evacuate the tons of earth and stone, but as the rains continue it is believed that only this Sunday the passage of vehicles on the highway could be enabled.
The situation is aggravated for patients who are transferred in ambulances from the San Andrés Hospital in Tumaco to the city of Pasto.
According to the revelation of the Special Intervention Agent of the hospital center, Pedro Espitia, “it is an immense rock the size of a house that has fallen on the road, it is not easy to remove it, this affects the evacuation of our patients, here we have two ambulances who have not been able to pass and we have two patients who require an immediate evacuation due to their health situation.”
Two houses destroyed
During the early hours of this Saturday, the winter also destroyed two houses when they were buried by a landslide, registered in the sector known as Pachindo, on the road that leads from the municipality of La Florida to the town of Sandoná, west of Nariño, where the authorities reported that two people were injured with head trauma. Mobility along the highway was suspended until the total evacuation of the land is carried out.
Another emergency affected this Saturday the sanctuary of Our Lady of La Playa in the municipality of San Pablo, where fortunately there were no fatalities or injuries, but there was considerable material damage.
(Keep reading: ‘Women meet to talk about life in the Cali River’)
The presbyter of the parish of San Pablo, Juan Gabriel, said that “thank God it has not happened to majors, a quantity of earth fell on the side of the sanctuary, also at the entrance there is a small slip, we have to remain very united ”.
The mayor of San Pablo, Ricardo Gómez, at the beginning of last February, had warned that the temple, which is very crowded on weekends by inhabitants of the departments of Nariño and Cauca, registered an instability of the land where it was built, so the risk was considered higher.
A commission from the Secretariat of Infrastructure of the Government of Nariño had traveled to that place in order to assess the situation and take the necessary measures.
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