Venezuela flood survivors brace for heavy rains
Reuters News Service, Dec. 30, 1999CARACAS - Survivors of Venezuela's deadly mudslides and flash floods faced more misery yesterday with heavy rain forecast for the country's devastated Caribbean coast, where up to 50,000 people were killed two weeks ago.
Torrential rains were expected in Caracas and along the Avila mountain range that divides the capital city from Vargas state, where whole towns were swept away this month by huge avalanches of mud, rocks and downed trees, said Civil Defence chief Angel Rangel.
"In Caracas alone, there are 30,000 houses in risky areas ... and nature has just shown us how vulnerable the country is," he told the Globovision television network.
Venezuelan Air Force chief meteorologist Jose Pereira urged residents to evacuate their homes if they believed it necessary and not to wait for advisories from Civil Defence workers.
"The weather will be very unstable in the next few days," Pereira said.
The government planned to move about 2,500 people out of some slums perched precariously on hillsides around the capital, Health Minister Gilberto Rodriguez said on Tuesday.
In Venezuela's worst natural disaster of modern times, thousands of flimsy homes on mountainside
shantytowns were engulfed along a 60-mile (100-km) swath of Vargas coast.
TENS OF THOUSANDS WERE KILLED
A top Red Cross official speaking on Tuesday in Caracas said the death toll was between 20,000 and 50,000, making it one of Latin American's worst natural disasters of the 20th century.
About 400,000 people were left homeless in the South American country of 23 million.
Government ministers have estimated that up to 30,000 died, most of them buried under tons of mud swept out to sea. President Hugo Chavez for the first time on Wednesday publicly provided figures that approached those estimates.
"We estimate that 10,000 to 15,000 people died, it could be more, let's hope not ... but these are figures one has to handle with caution," Chavez told reporters.
Rangel, who said this week the problem "was not so much the rain but the type of country on which it fell," stressed that at least four million Venezuelans currently lived in areas highly vulnerable to floods or landslides.
"In Caracas, it rains for just half an hour and slums slide down the mountain," he said.
Some of Chavez's critics have charged that authorities ignored warning signs that a huge disaster was brewing in Vargas on Dec. 15.
They claimed that Chavez and his government were too busy overseeing on that day a key referendum on a new constitution to worry about the weather.
Chavez and government ministers have brushed off the accusations that the catastrophe could have been avoided and blamed poor urban planning under previous "corrupt" governments that allowed illegal shanties to be built on unstable terrain.
Asked again on Wednesday about these reports, Chavez said "those who say this are either malevolent or foolish ... and are manipulating public opinion."
Venezuelan army patrols in aftermath of disaster
President Chavez leads recovery efforts
CNN.Com
LaGuaira, Venezuela – Dec. 22, 1999 (CNN) -- More than 13,000 Venezuelan army troops were fanning out over devastated Vargas state Wednesday, trying to prevent looting and persuade flood victims to leave the area.
More than 108,000 survivors of the crushing landslides that came down from Venezuela's Avila mountain range last week have already been evacuated to temporary shelters on seven military bases.
Troops were still looking for people who might be left alive amid the devastation. Authorities said that thousands of bodies may still be buried in the torrents of mud left by weeks of heavy rain.
The Venezuelan government said at least 20,000 people are dead. Civil Defense National Director Angel Rangel said, "The final number we will never know -- the forecast is that we could have maybe 25,000 or 30,000 people." About 1,500 bodies have been recovered so far in the worst natural catastrophe to hit the country this century.
Hardest-hit were slums in Caracas and popular Caribbean beach areas north of the capital.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who donned fatigues and a red beret to personally direct the rescue operation, said many of the survivors would eventually be moved to new settlements built away from the coasts on military bases and donated land. Vargas state had a population of about 350,000 people.
Survivors reluctant to leave
Chavez, a former paratrooper once jailed for staging a failed military coup, lambasted previous Venezuelan governments for allowing people to build homes in known mudslide zones.
The president was greeted enthusiastically by survivors at one refugee center southeast of the capital of Caracas. Many of the survivors regard the leftist leader as a hero. "He is keeping his word and helping his people," said 37-year-old survivor Edward Gomez.
Many of the survivors were reluctant to leave, even though some of their homes perched precariously on eroded hillsides were threatening at any moment to slide into fast-moving waters below.
Leticia Pelucarte, 52, and her neighbors in the port city La Guaira said they had no desire to move to a homeless shelter and give up the homes they have known all their lives. "We're not leaving," Pelucarte said.
Many of Pelucarte's neighbors said they doubted any other disaster was headed their way. "This happens once very 50 years," said 28-year-old Juan Carlos Yepes.
Soldiers guard against looting
But other flood victims, grateful for the refuge they found at centers in Caracas, hoped for more.
"I think, I hope, the government will give us a new home and give us jobs," Pedro Jose Rojas said. "We have to start over and make sure our children, too, get back on their feet."
Government officials said they feared an outbreak of disease in the devastated areas. One of the most critical tasks has been getting tons of donated food, medicine and water to those who need it.
"We have been receiving a lot of aid and the tough part is not having enough airplanes and helicopters to give that help," said Venezuelan Air Force Capt. Jose Bendito.
Army troops were also patrolling in an attempt to cut down on looting. Soldiers warded off gangs of youths ransacking empty apartments, but other people were seen making off with televisions and other goods strapped to their backs.
Correspondent
Harris Whitbeck, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Worst Flooding in Memory Kills Thousands in Venezuela
CARACAS, Venezuela,
December 20, 1999 (ENS) - Up to 25,000 people are feared dead in the floods brought on by torrential rains over the past four days that have devastated Caracas and surrounding areas. The state of Vargas, which borders the Caribbean Sea, has taken the brunt of the floods and landslides.Civil Defense agency chief Angel Rangel told a local radio station Monday that the worst affected areas are buried under seven meters (22 feet) of rubble and the exact death toll may never be known, but he estimated that from 15,000 to 25,000 people could be dead.
The Venezuelan Ministry of Environment has a great deal of information on the dangers of flooding in the areas that were the most damaged, says Luis Oswaldo Báez of the United Nations Disaster Office in Caracas. "Yet the population is allowed to grow in these areas," he said.
For the last two weeks the heaviest rainfall in 100 years has been falling on Caracas and the northern states, where more than 75 percent of the country’s population lives. The rains have triggered landslides and overflowing of main rivers and mountain streams, affecting the coastal regions from the eastern State of Anzoategui to the State of Zulia on the west coast.
Anything even approaching an estimation of the full extent of Venezuela's worst natural disaster this century is only just becoming known as Christmas Week begins with prayers for survival against overwhelming odds.
President Hugo Chavez has called the emergency "a national tragedy." Officials say the rains have caused Venezuela's worst natural disaster since an earthquake in 1967.
Two hundred thousand have been left homeless. More than one million people are stranded along the Central Litoral coast, which appears to be all but wiped out.
Navy landing craft have been evacuating survivors from coastal areas while military helicopters are ferrying supplies in and taking the injured out from the worst affected areas.
President Chavez has placed the military on round-the-clock emergency duty, and he has assigned the presidential jet to airlift homeless and injured people to safety.
The airport serving Caracas is still closed to commercial trafic. Maiquetia airport receiving incoming flights from countries sending emergency assistance.
The government of Venezuela is appealing to the world for assistance. A collection point for relief and emergency supplies set up in Miami is being handled by the Venezuelan Air Force. Contact: Major General Cristobal Rodriguez, Tel: 305-592-4460 or 61; Fax: 305-477-9351.
In a series of interviews, Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel told foreign radio and television stations that the death toll may already be well in excess of 7,000. At least 500 bodies have been recovered.
President Chavez told reporters that, "A Navy ship has picked up 50 bodies from the sea off Vargas." Grave diggers are working around the clock to deal with rotting corpses surfacing from the mud and with the shortage of coffins. Next of kin are queueing in long lines at cemetary gates hoping to identify next of kin. Disease is spreading with little or no medical care or medicines available.
A small delegation of adolescents and experts from Colombia is being prepared by the United Nations Childrens Fund to move into Venezuela to undertake psycho-social rehabilitation of children who have been traumatized by the events in Caracas and to transfer this know how to Venezuelan NGOs and authorities.
First Lady Marisabel Chavez has opened up the Presidential residence to children feared orphaned in floods and mudslides. Thirty-five children were there late Sunday evening.
Another 500 children rescued from along the coast by a Venezuelan navy frigate will be taken in to the presidential residence temporarily before being moved to hospitals and foster homes until the fate of their parents is known.
©
Environment News Service (ENS) 1999. All Rights Reserved. Venezuela mudslide toll at 5,000150,000 homeless; relief teams tested by disaster's extent
The Boston Globe, Dec. 20, 1999 Associated Press
LA GUAIRA, Venezuela - Survivors wandered through streets covered with rocks and mud in search of food and water yesterday as the death toll from massive mudslides and flooding in Venezuela exceeds 5,000, according to reports, which would make it the worst natural disaster to strike the nation this century.
Disaster relief workers scurried across the tarmac with the wounded at Caracas's international airport. Nearby Caribbean beaches, devastated by landslides and floods from last week's torrential rains, were turned into cemeteries, and widespread looting broke out across the northern coastline.
Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel said yesterday the estimated death toll had risen to 5,000. The second most deadly disaster this century was an earthquake that killed about 300 people in 1967.
Most of the dead remained buried under rubble and mud.
With 150,000 people rendered homeless and 6,000 still missing, the magnitude of the calamity overwhelmed Venezuela's capacity to respond. Dozens of nations from around the world rushed aid to the South American nation, including two planes and nine helicopters from the United States, which receives much of its petroleum from Venezuela.
Workers at the Southern Cemetery in the capital, Caracas, were digging 1,500 graves yesterday for the bodies being brought in, most of which were unidentified. Pictures of the dead were posted at the cemetery's gates.
On Wednesday, large swaths of Venezuela's northern coast were swept away when torrential rains triggered landslides that crashed down from a mountain that separates Caracas from the Caribbean coast.
''When I saw the wave coming at me, I didn't have time to remember I was an old lady,'' said 74-year-old Blanca Rosa Giraldo, who ran for her life and, unlike many others, made it to high ground.
Thousands of people remained cut off yesterday, stranded on rooftops or in mud-buried villages or underground parking lots where they'd tried to flee with their cars.
President Hugo Chavez dispatched hundreds of paratroopers who descended by rope from helicopters to rescue survivors and provide food and medicine. Navy ships were also moving up and down the coast to rescue survivors.
Many of the dead and wounded were poor people living in shacks made of tin, wood and cinderblock at the foot of Mount Avila. Millions had built homes on the mountainside because they couldn't afford to live anywhere else. In the port city of La Guaira, a posh golf course and elegant marinas with yachts were also wiped out.
Members of the paratroopers' unit were sent to control looting along the coast by people seeking to take advantage of the chaos. Most Venezuelans, however, were showing extraordinary solidarity, streaming into relief centers with boxes of diapers, medicine, food and other supplies.
President Clinton sent a letter to Chavez expressing his ''profound condolences to those who suffered losses,'' according to a Spanish version of the letter issued by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry.
A Colombian Air Force plane arrived yesterday with search and rescue workers and 10 tons of supplies including tents, mattresses, electrical generators, hammocks and blankets.
This story ran on page A02 of the Boston Globe on 12/20/1999.
Venezuelan Mudslide Death Toll Raised to 650
By Reuters News Service, Dec. 19, 1999CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - More than 500 people have been killed by raging rivers and mudslides along Venezuela's Caribbean coast, President Hugo Chavez said Sunday, pushing the official death toll from this week's killer storm to over 650.
Over 7,000 people are reported missing and presumed dead in the South American country's worst natural disaster in half a century.
``They told me today (Saturday) that we have more than 500 bodies in a gathering center,'' Chavez told reporters.
``Also, a Venezuelan navy ship picked up 50 bodies from the sea,'' off the devastated state of Vargas, just north of the capital Caracas, he said during an impromptu news conference that went into the early hours Sunday.
Most of the victims were buried alive under avalanches of mud or swept downstream Wednesday and Thursday as torrential rains drenched Venezuela's central coastal area, included Caracas where at least 100 died.
The final death toll was expected to be much higher, with survivors, among the thousands who were evacuated Saturday by a warship and dozens of army helicopters from the disaster area or trekked out of it, speaking of thousands of dead.
Another 200,000 were left homeless, government ministers said, as the magnitude of the disaster became apparent in Vargas, a ribbon-shaped state with 350,000 inhabitants.
The government set up a massive air and sea military rescue operation involving 12,000 troops on orders from Chavez, a former paratrooper. Survivors shared horrific tales.
Ivan Pulido, from the beach resort of Caraballeda, said he saw ``hundreds of corpses rotting in the sun.'' Another survivor said that, in his village alone, there were about 1,000 dead.
Defense Minister Raul Salazar said ``we might never know how many people died because in some areas, they were buried under five or six meters (16 to 20 feet) of mud.''
Dressed in combat fatigues with his trademark red beret, Chavez took personal command of the 1,500-paratrooper unit.
Men were dropped on remote beaches, some roping down from helicopters in the least accessible spots, to bring drinking water and medicine to those in need. By nightfall Saturday, hundreds of people were boarding a navy frigate at a beachhead in Caraballeda.
``We can transport 3,000 people each time,'' Chavez said, adding air and sea rescue operations would continue during the night with the aim of having everybody in a safe and healthy place as quickly as possible. ``We are in the middle of the battle, in midst of a tragedy. The most important thing right now is to save the largest number of lives possible,'' he said.
Alluding to relocation alternatives for the homeless, he said the disaster would spur implementation of plans to move people into the sparsely populated interior, especially the southern flatlands bordering Colombia.
``We have plans to create great cities in the south and the interior,'' he said. "Unfortunately nature has obliged us to accelerate them dramatically.''
Along the coast of Vargas, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of refugees, many of whom lost everything, trekked on roads inundated by mud, sometimes walking on the tops of half-buried cars. Once-idyllic tourist beaches in the area were strewn with tree trunks and boulders.
Villages and towns looked like a war zone with boulders the size of small cars littering the muddy streets, as incongruous as meteorites fallen from the sky.
All large buildings were still standing, although some were a story deep in mud. But the ramshackle, tin-roofed houses scattered on the mountainside had been washed down gorges.
Beaches, elegant marinas and a golf course were covered in mud. There was no food, no electricity, no running water and no telephone service. Drains were blocked, causing health risks aggravated by decomposing bodies.
Storefronts had been wrenched open and shops looted. Residents spoke of widespread looting in particular during the night when gunshots rang out, heightening a sense of insecurity for the few remaining residents unwilling to leave for fear of losing what remained of their possessions.
``What used to be La Guaira is finished. Vargas state has disappeared,'' said Herman Paredes, as he surveyed the catastrophic scene from a road above the coastline.
Toll in Venezuela flooding rises to
137
Caracas paralyzed, shantytowns ruined
The Boston Globe, Dec. 17, 1999 By Gilles Trequesser, Reuters
CARACAS - At least 100 people died and 100 were missing as torrential flooding and mudslides triggered by heavy rains swept through poor districts of the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, the city governor said yesterday.The fatalities were in addition to at least 37 people confirmed dead Wednesday in the coastal state of Vargas, just north of Caracas, as muddy torrents destroyed hundreds of homes.
''At least 100 people are dead in Caracas; 100 are missing and 3,200 people are homeless,'' Governor Hernan Gruber told the local Union Radio station.
It was the worst natural disaster to hit the capital since tropical storm Bret set off landslides that killed more than 100 people in August 1993.
Unseasonal heavy rains have drenched Venezuela's Caribbean coast for the past 10 days, turning normally small streams into walls of water. The rains, which were forecast to continue through the weekend, affected the entire coastline, stretching from the tourist island of Margarita to the western state of Zulia, which borders Colombia.
Worst hit were shanty settlements perched precariously on steep mountainsides, where one in three of the capital's six million residents live.
Rescue efforts were being coordinated by the military, but officials appeared to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the flooding.
Television footage showed torrents of brown water gushing down streets as residents watched in awe and disbelief. Mangled cars, some upside down, were piled against walls and street posts.
Streams of homeless people trudged through the mud and along main highways carrying what they could salvage from the flood.
Witnesses spoke of whole settlements being washed away.
''The mountain collapsed on us and there was water, water, just water. I lost 11 relatives,'' Blandina Mangaola said tearfully at an emergency rescue center set up in a sports hall.
''Eleven members of my family disappeared under the house,'' said Joan Martinez, 19.
''When we were trying to help them, the hill crashed down on us. I tried to help my cousin, who was screaming for help, but electricity wires fell down and she was electrocuted,'' she said.
Thousands of residents from low-income areas and shantytowns on the flanks of the Avila mountain overlooking the city were flooded out of their homes.
''The Blandin neighborhood was practically destroyed. There are a lot of people trapped ... hundreds of people. The water swept away a complete neighborhood,'' said Luis Martinez, head of the metropolitan police motorized brigade.
President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday night that 37 bodies had been recovered in Vargas state, most of them in La Guaira, a port town 30 miles north of Caracas close to Simon Bolivar international airport, at Maiquetia.
All flights to the airport were rerouted, airport director Arnaldo Certain said. He did not say when the airport might reopen.
''The only flights authorized are for emergency purposes,'' he said. ''We cannot receive passengers because we are completely cut off from Caracas and the rest of the country.''
The main highway linking Caracas to the airport, a vital trade artery between the capital and the coast, was blocked.
Most other main roads into the city were flooded, virtually cutting it off from the rest of the country. A state of emergency was declared in eight of Venezuela's 23 states following the downpour.
The normally bustling capital was virtually paralyzed. Many streets were impassable, littered with rocks, tree branches, and other debris with muddy water up to 2 feet high, creating huge traffic jams.
This story ran on page A02 of the Boston Globe on 12/17/99.
Deadly rains, landslides
Thu Dec 16 1999 9:45 EST
Donna Pistilli Sauer, weather.com (The Weather Channel)
Heavy rain-induced landslides claimed more than 3 dozen lives in coastal Venezuela Wednesday, President Hugo Chavez said.
At least 37 people died in the storms and landslides that ravaged a coastal area just north of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
"Until now 37 bodies have been recovered," said Chavez in a televised statement. The rains and mudslides affected more than 19,000 people nationwide; 4,000 of them were left homeless, Civil Defense officials said.
Eight of Venezuela's 23 states and the Federal District that includes Caracas were under a state of emergency Wednesday.
Worst hit was the state of Vargas, where the mud engulfed homes in poor neighborhoods. The wife of the Vargas state governor said that many victims were children. "Entire families are buried under mud," she said.
Mayor Leon Marcano of the city of La Guaira, a port town next to the Caracas airport, said the damage was the worst in the area in at least 50 years.
Reuters Limited contributed to this report.