Greater than 500 individuals evacuated after Ecuador floods

Greater than 500 individuals had been evacuated from their houses in northern Ecuador on Sunday following flooding attributable to heavy rains, President Guillermo Lasso mentioned.

Nobody had been reported lifeless or lacking, he mentioned.

Dozens of residents climbed onto the roofs or balconies of their houses to guard themselves from the rising waters, based on photos launched by the Ministry of Protection.

Rain had fallen for 12 hours with out interruption, inflicting six rivers to overflow, Lasso mentioned.

“The precedence is to save lots of their lives, let’s shield them! We’ve already rescued 500 individuals and the work continues,” he wrote on Twitter.

Authorities evacuated round 500 individuals by boat and one other 30 by helicopter, the Danger Administration Secretariat mentioned.

Round 11,750 individuals had been affected by the floods and 16 misplaced their houses within the province of Esmeraldas, which borders Colombia.

Courses had been suspended in a number of cities the place colleges had been broken.

5 well being facilities had been additionally affected.

Between January and Could, 36 individuals have been killed and greater than 99,000 affected throughout Ecuador.

In March, a landslide attributable to heavy rains within the Andean city of Alausi buried dozens of homes, killing round 60 individuals.

Rescuers are nonetheless working to get well the our bodies of 13 individuals who went lacking in that catastrophe.

© 2023 AFP