A second landslide and rocks, which occurred this Tuesday, on the Cuesta del Chama de Mérida, blocked a motorized vehicle that was traveling through the area when the avalanche fell on the road.
The victim was identified as Raúl Serrano (44) who presented generalized trauma and head trauma.
Drivers who were on the road tried to help him and get him out, along with police officers, Civil Protection and Merida Firefighters. Serrano was unearthed and transferred to the Autonomous University Hospital Institute of the Andes (Iahula) for proper care.
However, the motorized man died, as confirmed by Governor Jehyson Guzmán, who indicated that they activated the Civil Protection teams, Merida Firefighters together with those of the Libertador Mayor’s Office (Mérida) and cordoned off the passage in the section from Santa Juana to the Urbanization Carabobo, “which will allow the road recovery work to flow.”
“There is no alternate or pedestrian, motorcycle or vehicular passage to avoid any risk situation,” Guzmán emphasized.
He added that all efforts will be made to restore the passage, he also urged the community to use the alternate route from San Jacinto to El Chama, so that the machinery and personnel can work without any setbacks and “nobody gets in trouble.” risk”.
The governor said that the work teams are in the area, evaluating the activation of that slope, since it is a natural phenomenon, “we are waiting for the analyzes of the geologists to be able to determine the level of affectation.”
Machinery Deployment
Marielys Sacipa, representative of the department for the Development of the Quality of Public Services of the government, reported that all the machinery of the regional and municipal Executive was deployed to work on the affected site.
Sacipa explained that there is a backhoe, a jumbo and several dump trucks to carry out the work of collecting debris and rocks on the road.
Sacipa referred to the restitution of the pass between Santa Juana and the Jacinto Plaza parish and pointed out that “this slope is fully active, so you have to wait a while, you have to monitor the behavior of the slope, after the entry of machinery to clearing the road.”
articulated work
The mayor of the Libertador municipality (Mérida) Jesús Araque pointed out that the Bolivarian Government is deployed to attend to the emergency situation in the jurisdiction.
He stressed that there is machinery and crews of men for the prompt opening of the passage that connects the city of Mérida with the Chama basin.
Araque informed that the first balance made by the mayor’s geologist on why the slope broke off, indicates that there is “a damaged (broken) sewer and that together with the overweight of the buses of the Los Chorros Line that is located in Santa Juana and the circulation of buses, is causing the activation of the slope ».
Luis Sivoli, director of Mérida Civil Protection, added that the saturation of the soil as a result of the heavy rainfall in the Andean entity, coupled with the poor management of sewage, “made the soil of this slope completely saturated and yielded to the waters».
He stressed that the technical staff of Mérida Civil Protection are carrying out a risk analysis report. “There are already two geologists belonging to the risk committee, carrying out the evaluations to be able to give a more precise diagnosis.”
Sivoli explained that the second landslide dragged an approximate six thousand five hundred cubic meters of rocky material on the road, with a height of three hundred meters.
This natural event affected a high voltage cable of the power line in the area and Corpoelec officials are already working to restore the service.
