(MENAFN- Gulf Times) At least 40 people have been killed and dozens are missing after a landslide in northwest Colombia in the early hours of yesterday, officials said.
Heavy rains caused a ravine to overflow, sending mud and water onto neighbouring homes in Salgar, located in Antioquia department.
"We still do not have an exact figure, I only know that there are more than 40 dead, many families displaced, but I still can't give an exact figure," local official Zulma Osorio told local Caracol Radio.
"The tragedy is of an immense magnitude," she added. "There are many more dead, the whole town is totally collapsed."
Photographs released by the country's air force and television news footage showed destroyed homes and streets covered in mud and debris in the town, which is located in a mountainous area close to the Colombian Andes.
Residents were pictured picking through rubble looking for survivors.
"This was so terrible, we heard rocks hitting, the water dragged us and we had to go to the kitchen and climb up onto the roof," a local man told Caracol.
President Juan Manuel Santos, who is travelling to the town, said via Twitter that Colombia's government will provide aid to the victims.
"We are attending to the emergency in Salgar. Those affected will receive all our support," he said.
Survivors told local radio they awoke to sound of a loud rumble and neighbours' shouts of, "The river! The river!" Many were barely able to gather their loved and get out of the way before an avalanche of heavy rock and mud overtook the homes bordering the steep Libordiana ravine.
General Jose Angel Mendoza, the top police official for the area, told Blu Radio that the number of casualties was likely to rise.
He said the flooding had destroyed the town's aqueduct and led to flooding even in less hazardous parts of the town. He called on authorities to send water and food supplies to stem the emergency.
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