The National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (Ungrd) reported this Thursday that the rains in Colombia, the strongest in the last four decades, leave so far this year 204 dead, 37 missing and 281 wounded.
At the cutoff of November 10, according to figures from the Unit, rainfall also left 488,502 victims (147,562 families) in 772 of the 1,103 municipalities of Colombia.
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Equally, 5,840 homes were destroyed due to effects associated with the rains and another 77,045 were seriously damaged.
In addition, 2,213 roads, 247 vehicular bridges, 114 pedestrian bridges, 321 aqueducts, 84 sewers, 19 health centers and 247 schools were affected by the rains or events associated with them.
All this product of 1,149 mass movements, 788 floods, 294 torrential avenues, 83 storms, 32 hailstorms and 8 electrical storms.
Floods also cause other effects, such as destruction of crops and loss of animals, especially cattle and poultry.
The Colombian government reported last Tuesday that it allocated 2.1 billion pesos (about 437 million dollars today) to deal with the consequences that the rains have left on issues such as food, health and housing.
Due to the rainy season, which reaches the highest levels in 40 years, President Gustavo Petro also declared last week the “disaster” situation in the country.
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The Colombian head of state explained that by declaring the situation a “disaster” it allows the state to move resources that were budgeted by the previous government and that are not being executed.
The resources will be allocated, according to Petro, to “attend (in other matters) to the population in crisis”, both “because of the floods” and “because of the famine”.
