The search and rescue of the missing in the avalanche occurred this week in the municipality of Quetamewhich left 20 dead, were suspended this Thursday due to the risk of damming a river, official sources reported.
“The entities that are part of the National Disaster Risk Management System, taking into account the evidence of damming in the upper and lower parts of the Contador River,” took a series of actions “urgently,” reported the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (Ungrd) in a statement.
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Among these measures is “immediately suspending the search and rescue tasks for the disappeared, since these tasks will generate an increase in the level and flow that flows into the Negro River”, and in this situation “the preventive evacuation of the inhabitants surrounding the Contador River area” begins.
In this context, the authorities “preventively” alerted the community to “avoid entering the roundabout of the river and its banks”while they asked “to be very attentive to the levels of the rivers and to the communications” that are issued in the coming days.
The tragedy occurred after heavy rains that caused the overflow of two tributary streams of the Negro River, which destroyed part of the Naranjal hamlet, located in the rural area of Quetame.