Dozens of citizens joined this Saturday, February 5, 2022, in a community clean-up work due to the flood last Monday in the north of Quito, which left 28 dead and more than fifty injured.
The mayor of Quito, Santiago Guarderasreported this Saturday at a press conference of the death of one of the two people who were hospitalized in critical condition.
Ten people still remain hospitalized and the report of a 38-year-old woman is still missing.
55 homes have been evaluated, 27 of which have affected the first floor and seven collapsed, as well as 14 enclosures.
In total, there are 555 people affected, corresponding to 160 families.
In addition, 37 vehicles and 22 motorcycles were affected, as well as 20 poles, a substation of the Electric Company and 40 garbage containers.
On Friday nurseries declared a state of emergency in the area affected by the flood to restore the conditions of the victims and mobilize resources.
shows of solidarity
Officials and neighbors participated in this Saturday’s community work with shovels and brooms to start the cleanup in the flood zone.
Caroline Velazquez, Secretary of Territorial Coordination and Citizen Participation, said that municipal officials, the community, universities and private companies participate, who were distributed in eleven quadrants from Ritter Street to Amazonas Avenue to clean up the area affected by the flood.
Verónica Alvear, owner of a commercial premises in La Gasca and a witness to the flood, said that after hearing a noise she thought it was an explosion at an electrical service terminal, however, that was when “the mountain fell.”
“Some vehicles passed by alerting and beeping” and when he left the premises “the landslide came, bringing with it poles, traffic lights,” he said, noting that “there remains that image of not having been able to help and being afraid that this will happen again,” notes a statement from Municipality.
The institution added statements from Karen Calderón, another resident of the sector, who said that the work and passion to help others “is the Quito identity that is part” of community work, an activity that in the Andean country is known as “minga”. ».
According to the mayor, Monday’s flood occurred due to an “extraordinary natural phenomenon”, which had its origin in the intense rain that fell on the city on Monday, with 75 millimeters of precipitation, when only two millimeters were expected.
That volume is the highest on record since 2003.
One of the reservoirs built to capture rainwater in the mountains, with a capacity of 4,500 cubic meters, overflowed because an accumulation of 20,000 cubic meters is calculated, explained the mayor.
But the neighbors attribute the tragedy to the uncontrolled construction on the slopes of the volcano reclaimed from wooded land, in addition to the accumulation of waste in the area.
