San José del Palmar, a municipality in the southeast of the department of Chocó that borders the departments of Risaralda and Valle del Cauca, was the epicenter of the strong earthquake that was recorded on the morning of this Monday, August 10 in Colombia.
The strong tremor has already left more than 25 dead in several departments of the country. EL TIEMPO contacted the mayor of that municipality, León Fabio Marín Moncada, who provided key data and information about the situation in the municipality.
The damages
“So far we are making an assessment to establish the damages. But preliminarily we are talking about about 400 affected homes and I can tell you that there are already about 20 collapsed structures,” Marín assured EL TIEMPO’s Investigative Unit.
And he added: “We know that one of the most affected points is the corregimiento of La Italia which has about 3,000 inhabitants but we have not been able to fully communicate with the population because we have no phone signal”.
When EL TIEMPO asked if there were any fatalities, he said that for now there are none, but several injured.
‘No electric power’
This newspaper also spoke with Helen Johana Cuero, the municipality’s ombudswoman, who assured that the only entrance and exit road to the municipality is blocked by landslides.
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“There is no electric power and the aqueduct is not working. Several schools are affected in rural areas. We are trying to establish collection centers for humanitarian aid”, Cuero told EL TIEMPO.
She also assured that there are several ambulances with patients who were evacuated from clinics due to the earthquake, who are requesting help and a helicopter to be taken out of the municipality due to the road closure.
INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
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