Mud Slide Kills 100 in City in Colombia

A mud slide, triggered by torrential rains, roared through a neighborhood in Medellin on Sunday afternoon, killing at least 100 people, destroying as many houses and forcing hundreds of families to flee their homes, authorities in Colombia’s second-largest city reported.

Medellin Mayor William Jaramillo Gomez told Radio Caracol that 100 people died, 200 were injured and 500 were missing in the Villa Tina neighborhood, one of the poorest in the city.

The city morgue said it had received 86 bodies, and hospitals reported 14 other people had died of their injuries, according to Colombian news reports.

Among the victims was a group of 30 children who were celebrating their first Holy Communion, said Sister Luz Maria, member of a Roman Catholic order that works in the neighborhood.

“We fear the death toll could reach 150 persons,” Civil Defense coordinator Humberto Ramirez said.

200 Treated for Injuries

Hospitals said they had treated about 200 people who were injured when tons of mud and rock rained onto 60 houses at the base of Sugar Loaf mountain. The hospitals said most of the injured were children with multiple fractures and lacerations.

Medellin, with a population of 2 million, is in a valley high in the Andes mountains about 300 miles northwest of the capital Bogota.

The mayor said mountain creeks burst their banks in the wake of heavy rains, sending a stream of water, earth and rocks cascading onto a neighborhood at the foot of Sugar Loaf mountain, which is part of the Andean chain that surrounds Medellin.

Torrential rains have fallen on the northern Andes for the past week.

Rescue workers continued digging through the night with the help of spotlights, looking for possible survivors, despite the danger of new avalanches.

“We have ordered the evacuation of hundreds of families in the surrounding area and rescue brigades are digging through the mud slide in the rain . . . in search of more bodies,” Ramirez said.

“We heard the noise that sounded like an explosion, and soon afterward a huge mass of rocks and mud descended upon us,” said Mary Mosquera, who lost three daughters in the avalanche. “They were trapped by huge rocks and we couldn’t do anything to rescue them.”

“I thought an airplane had crashed on the side of the mountain,” said Alirio Garcia, who helped rescue his wounded neighbors and recovered several bodies. “It was horrible.”

A landslide triggered by days of heavy rain killed 20 people near the town of La Piragua in southern Colombia on June 21, 1986.

On Nov. 13, 1985, the Nevada el Ruiz volcano erupted, sending a wall of mud roaring into the town of Armero, 65 miles west of Bogota. More than 20,000 people died.