There are communities in Dosquebradas and Pereira, which have been settled in some sectors for more than 40 years, in what at that time perhaps did not represent the current risk and on which a concept of “non-mitigable” zone weighs, which does not translate another thing that no type of works can be carried out there, because the natural threat is latent.
But two issues remain, the promises of the administrations on duty when emergencies arose and to see that while a relocation takes place (quite complicated in itself) there is no new emergency to attend to.
The wall of La Esneda
On the right bank of the Otún river, on 24th street and after crossing the bridge, on the left you can see the desperate measure that the community had to take for almost a month, which is nothing more than the litter or sacks with rubble to stack against what the river has left and that supports the road next to the houses.
Mayor Diego Ramos reported in this regard that “This situation is due to the storms of the river and the winter that has been undermining the entire block for a long time. There, a mitigation work is needed by the departmental government, the Carder and the municipality, because it is a long enough wall to be able to give full security to that entire block.”
The community says that with another rise in the river, the road that they were forced to close for the passage of vehicles will completely disappear. They requested that if they could not build the wall, they would provide them with a backhoe that would bring the large stones closer to them as a natural wall, so that the river would continue without entering, and they were not successful either.
What the community says
Marisol Patiño – affected resident
“Among all of us we had to meet, because nobody helps us and as they see where there is nothing, before it was like this front where the animals are. In the Diger they do not stop us balls and we are very worried ”.
Orlando Londoño – affected resident
“Unfortunately we are low-income people and that is why we live here. We are under imminent avalanche danger. They will relocate us when we are dead it will be ”.
Given
The Rubén Sanín school is closed as a precaution, but the children who studied there spend more time at home than at school, under the same risk. They are in more danger walking along Avenida del Río or crossing it.
Cipher
$201,000 was paid for this year’s property bill by Orlando Londoño, a Bon Ice vendor, and his wife who works as a domestic worker for having the house facing the river.