VENEZUELA/COLOMBIA: Tens of thousands homeless after weeks of rains cause massive flooding/Venezuela President Hugo Chavez orders creation of temporary housing from any available space

Record ID: 333045

  • Title: VENEZUELA/COLOMBIA: Tens of thousands homeless after weeks of rains cause massive flooding/Venezuela President Hugo Chavez orders creation of temporary housing from any available space
  • Date: 7th December 2010
  • Summary: VICTIMS IN THE STREETS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) FLOOD VICTIM, MARIA REYES, SAYING: "Here we are waiting for the president, or the people in this area who are working for the president. When these disasters have happened in the past, they have helped us. But already we have been here two days and we haven't seen any results. Now I don't know if it is that the president is not aware that here we are persons from distinct sectors of the country. From here to Caracas, I don't know how the problem will be solved for us." VICTIMS AT THE DOOR OF A REFUGEE
  • Embargoed: 22nd December 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of, Colombia
  • City:
  • Country: Colombia Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVACLA8S2AGH24M9CP4WORZGYIJV
  • Story Text: Venezuelan security forces have started housing families displaced by floods in tourist hotel rooms and shopping malls following an order by President Hugo Chavez on Sunday (December 5).
    Heavy rains have killed at least 32 people and forced 70,000 from their homes in recent days.
    Chavez addressed the head of the National Guard, Mayor General Luis Mota Dominguez, and Vice-President Elias Jaua, ordering them to start using vacant hotel rooms to shelter the homeless.
    "General Mota, you go to see how many buildings have been abandoned there by these tourists. And from today we will start to occupy them with these families. You are not going to pay anything. And so from today you begin to make a selection, and we are occupying these buildings temporarily. Afterwards you will return back here. But we are occupying them, Mota. Elias, an emergency decree, we are in an emergency here. I have already signed an emergency degree. The emergency should not only be to say that we are in an emergency, it is to take emergency measures," said Chavez.
    Meanwhile, shopping centres were serving the same purposed in Caracas.
    The country's capital has also been badly hit, with mudslides sweeping away houses that were clinging to hillsides in the poorest neighbourhoods.
    Chavez, who on Sunday blamed "criminal" capitalism for the disaster, has given 25 families refuge in his presidential palace and ordered space to be made for others in ministries and army barracks.
    Flood victim and mother, Coromoto Valera, spoke out on Chavez's involvement.
    "I have young children. Imagine. What more can we ask? Already Chavez has given us petrol. Don't you believe it?" said Valera. "The homeless people are not the only people here. Here there are millions of people who are homeless. They sould find a solution to our problem."
    Critics of Chavez say the impact of the rains show poor planning by his government and the failure of its housing policy after 11 years in power. Chavez says he is still working to overturn the inequalities of past capitalist governments.
    Flood victim, Maria Reyes, said there were still many people waiting for assistance.
    "Here we are waiting for the president, or the people in this area who are working for the president. When these disasters have happened in the past, they have helped us. But already we have been here two days and we haven't seen any results. Now I don't know if it is that the president is not aware that here we are persons from distinct sectors of the country. From here to Caracas, I don't know how the problem will be solved for us," said Reyes.
    The flood water was already taking a toll on the country's infrastructure, washing away highways and even cutting a gaping hole between two lanes of one interstate in the coastal state of Falcon.
    Torrential rains and floods have also killed over 180 people and made 1.5 million homeless in neighbouring Colombia, albeit over a longer period.
    Victim Nubia Mosquera, from the coastal town of Barranquilla, was one of many left without anywhere safe to live.
    "This is terrible. We don't know what to do with the children. We have fungus. We are desperate. Frankly, we have already lost everything," said Mosquera.
    A mudslide in the north-west department of Antioquia on Sunday buried dozens of homes and authorities fear as many as 145 could be trapped under the rubble.
    The downpours in recent months are due to the La Nina weather phenomenon, which the government's weather office expects to last into the first quarter of next year.
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