NAfter the storm Julia, the devastation is great. According to official figures, at least 59 people died as a result of storms and floods in Central and South America. The death toll after a landslide in Venezuela has risen to at least 34. More than 60 other people are missing, as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said during a visit to the affected area on Monday (local time). “We haven’t experienced a landslide of this magnitude in Venezuela for many years.” The South American country is already in a deep political, economic and humanitarian crisis.
According to official information, the authoritarian Maduro got an impression of the situation in Las Tejerías in the state of Aragua. He promised to rebuild to “the last shop and the last house.” Hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed or damaged.
According to Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, heavy rain from storm Julia, which made landfall in Nicaragua over the weekend as a hurricane, caused several rivers to overflow. Images showed mud covering large parts of the site. Las Tejerías has a good 50,000 inhabitants and is located around 50 kilometers southwest of the capital Caracas on an important industrial axis in Venezuela.
In Central America, Tropical Storm Julia caused landslides and flooding, killing at least 25 people. According to authorities on Monday, 13 people were killed in Guatemala and nine people in El Salvador. Five of the nine dead in El Salvador were soldiers who died when a wall collapsed in a landslide. According to media reports, three people were killed in Honduras.
The storm has cleared but it will continue to rain, said Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammatei. The US hurricane center had announced that there was still a risk of life-threatening storm surges and mudslides. Giammattei declared a state of emergency for 30 days in order to be able to initiate rapid relief measures for the victims of Julia.
The storm formed on Friday over the Caribbean Sea off Colombia and made landfall on Sunday night as a Category 1 5 hurricane on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. Inland, it lost strength and moved west across Guatemala on Monday with wind speeds of 55 kilometers per hour.
