In pictures | Venezuela: 22 killed, more than 50 missing in landslides

A landslide destroyed homes and businesses, mudslides, uprooted trees … and left at least 22 people dead and 52 missing after a landslide hit the industrial city of Las Tejerias in central Venezuela on Saturday afternoon.

13 people have already died in the country due to the heavy rains that have been falling for a week.

According to the first assessment of Venezuela Vice, “Five streams have overflowed and (…) we see here a very important loss, human losses: to date, we have already found 22 dead, more than 52 missing” President Delci Rodríguez.

In Las Tejerias, the tragedy occurred after three hours of heavy rain that started on Saturday afternoon. Several rivers burst their banks and washed away earth, rocks and trees from the mountains bordering the city of about 50,000 people.

“climate change”

The city, about fifty kilometers southwest of Caracas, now has an apocalyptic appearance with overcrowded houses and businesses and mud covering the streets.

Huge trees and cars were swept away and the main road is now littered with debris, pieces of wood, sheet metal and other debris.

“The city is gone, Las Tejerias is gone,” laments Carmen Melendez, who has lived there for 55 years.

With tears in his eyes, 50-year-old Loris Verenzula contemplated the scale of the disaster: “I never thought something of this magnitude could happen, it was strong! “.

President Nicolás Maduro declared three days of national mourning in “solidarity with the families” and told residents they were “not alone!”.

A thousand people are taking part in rescue operations, Interior and Justice Minister Remizio Ceballos, who went there to assess the damage, told AFP.

“We have had massive landslides, a consequence of climate change,” the minister said, attributing the rainfall to Hurricane Julia moving further north in Venezuela.

During his visit, Mr. Ceballos assured that the city of Ichaso had received “a record amount of precipitation,” with the average amount of water falling in a month falling in one day. “These heavy rains have saturated the ground,” the minister said.

On Sunday, teams of laborers cleaned the roads full of mud and garbage. Images taken by drones used by rescue teams show large amounts of mud and dirt covering several streets in Las Tejerias, where residents are trying to clear tons of mud from homes.

Worried, Carmen waits for news from her missing cousin Margot Silva. She lives in a nearby town and commutes to Las Tejerias to run errands.

“This is the first time we have seen something like this, we know we can overcome it, but we are sorry for the loss of life,” Carmen told AFP.

On social networks, many people offer their help and the great baseball club of Los Leones, Caracas, has indicated that it has collected non-perishable food, mineral water and clothes for the victims.

Opponent Juan Guido assessed on Twitter the need to support victims and “respond to the emergency”, criticizing a “dictatorship that grabs power without worrying about the people”.

In 1999, a massive landslide killed 10,000 people in Vargas state, 25 kilometers north of Caracas.