A raging fire that started on Saturday night left a mother and her 2-year-old daughter dead and some 70 families homeless in the town of Guapi, in the south of the Colombian Pacific, local authorities reported this Sunday to Efe.
“There were two victims, a mother with a girl more or less than 2 years old, who have died,” the mayor of Guapi, Plutarco Marino Grueso, told Efe.
The fire started in the Puerto Cali neighborhood at about 11:30 p.m. local time on Saturday (4:30 GMT) and around 4:00 local time on Sunday (9:00 GMT) “the flames went down but there is still smoke,” said the mayor, although already It is controlled.
However, the flames devoured more than fifty houses. “There are 53 or 54 houses affected and 70 families,” summarized the mayor, who assured that they are gathering mats and community food to settle these families in the house of culture of this small Pacific town.
“What we are looking for is how international organizations and the national government agree not to leave these families stranded but to collaborate with them because they were left with nothing,” asked Marino Grueso, who called on the authorities to respond to the emergency.
The Colombian Pacific, where the majority of the population is black, is one of the most impoverished regions of the country and most towns, like Guapi, are disconnected from the rest of the country due to the lack of roads and jungle geography and are made up of cabins made of wood that are exposed to this type of catastrophe.
EFE
