There were more tears than rain in Colombia today.
Here in Bogota almost everyone knows someone or is related to someone who lost their life in yesterday’s terrifying landslide.
Heart-wrenching reports from television show grief stricken relatives begging for rescue workers to find their missing loved ones. People’s hopes soar when the dogs start digging at the earth, and try to help them with their bare hands. Hopes soon fade when they learn that while rescue workers did find 20 bodies, it is feared that more than 100 people are still missing.
We are used to rain in Colombia but the rains of past weeks that have caused so much human tragedy are said to be the worst in the last 42 years. Even here in Bogota, it’s a teeming, never-ending rain. Not hundreds but thousands of people have been driven from their homes, many with no place to go. Coffee and flower crops, which keep food on the table for many Colombians, have been destroyed.
More...Jorge Luis Pardo is the publisher of Bogota Free Planet
