37 dead in Las Tejerías floods, Venezuela

At least 37 people have been killed by the flood that has swept through the town of Las Tejerías, in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, and has affected nearly 20,000 homes, according to the Red Cross on Monday.

“Until Sunday night we had identified 25 corpses, and we have to confirm the identity of 15 more bodies found in the tragedy zone. There are 20,000 homes that were heavily damaged and, together with the community councils, we are working on their identification to have an exact number of people affected,” explained the president of the Red Cross in Aragua, Mario Gulano.

There are also some 765 homes destroyed and 1,400 families affected, as reported by Caritas, as gathered by the news portal Efecto Cocuyo. “The three shelters that had been opened yesterday (Sunday) are going to be moved to La Placera de Maracay, in order to have people in better conditions than in the schools that are in the area,” he added.

The Ministry of Food has already distributed 486 tons of food among the families victims of the landslide, as explained by the minister, Carlos Leal Tellería, who visited the locality accompanied by the governor, Karina Carpio.

More than a thousand men and women are deployed in the area, including firefighters, military, Civil Protection and all police forces.

The intense rain began on Saturday afternoon and lasted until late at night, which caused landslides, rocks and trees that devastated 21 sectors of this locality, one of the poorest in the state of Aragua.