Latin America: Week in Review, Venezuela
Floods In Venezuela Kill 21 And Leave Thousands More Stranded
December 1, 2010 By Staff
A view of Caracas, Venezuela
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Floods due to torrential rain in Venezuela have left 21 people dead, stranded thousands more and idled an oil refinery.
Vice President Elias Jaua said there had been 21 deaths nationwide since Thursday, with 5,600 people forced to flee from their homes. Authorities confirmed eight deaths in Caracas and nearby states on Tuesday.
“I pray to God to help us,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said in a televised speech, according to The Washington Post.
There were long lines in poor Caracas neighborhoods where officials registered families to be housed in temporary accommodations including hotels, government offices and even the presidential palace. The government declared an emergency in three states and Caracas, canceling school and opening hundreds of storm shelters.
The storms also caused a power outage that stopped operations Monday at the Cardon oil refinery in Falcon and similar problems forced some units at the Amuay refinery to shut down. The Venezuelan government said that the outages would not affect fuel shipments, as it had adequate supplies on hand.
Many of those killed in Caracas in recent days have been children and adolescents. In some areas where the storms destroyed homes, people gathered their belongings and left.
“The only thing I remember was a loud clamor and the people screaming,” said 60-year-old Ena Romero, remembering when part of a hillside collapsed in her neighborhood and took other homes with it, according to the Associated Press.
Floods due to torrential rain in Venezuela have left 21 people dead, stranded thousands more and idled an oil refinery.
Vice President Elias Jaua said there had been 21 deaths nationwide since Thursday, with 5,600 people forced to flee from their homes. Authorities confirmed eight deaths in Caracas and nearby states on Tuesday.
“I pray to God to help us,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said in a televised speech, according to The Washington Post.
There were long lines in poor Caracas neighborhoods where officials registered families to be housed in temporary accommodations including hotels, government offices and even the presidential palace. The government declared an emergency in three states and Caracas, canceling school and opening hundreds of storm shelters.
The storms also caused a power outage that stopped operations Monday at the Cardon oil refinery in Falcon and similar problems forced some units at the Amuay refinery to shut down. The Venezuelan government said that the outages would not affect fuel shipments, as it had adequate supplies on hand.
Many of those killed in Caracas in recent days have been children and adolescents. In some areas where the storms destroyed homes, people gathered their belongings and left.
“The only thing I remember was a loud clamor and the people screaming,” said 60-year-old Ena Romero, remembering when part of a hillside collapsed in her neighborhood and took other homes with it, according to the Associated Press.
Just Published at the Latin America News Dispatch
- Secure Communities, a federal anti-illegal immigration program, is stirring debate in New York. Amy Elmgren reports.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Mexico City lawmakers approved legislation to allow women in the capital district to be surrogate mothers.
- The alleged head of the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel’s operation en Morelia, Mexico was arrested by federal police.
Caribbean
- Cuban intelligence agents are so close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez that they provide him with unvetted intelligence information, according to a cables made public by WikiLeaks.
- Haiti’s Sunday elections were “fairly good” and not derailed despite calls for its annulment, a top U.N. official said Tuesday.
- Puerto Rico will begin one-on-one meetings with four investor groups, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, interested in leasing two toll roads under its plan to close a budget deficit that led to a credit rating lower than any state.
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Dominican authorities said that the number of cholera cases in the country rose to nine with the detection of two more people infected with the disease in the northern province of Santiago.
Central America
- A passenger on an American Airlines plane bound for Miami from Guatemala was being interviewed Tuesday after he was accused of shoving and poking a flight attendant during the flight, according to authorities.
- A border dispute over a remote swamp island is threatening bilateral ties between Costa Rica and Nicaragua and putting regional stability at risk.
- The U.S. has won greater access to information about bank accounts in Panama, a step that could move the U.S. closer to ratifying a stalled trade deal with the Central American nation.
Andes
- Heavy flooding and mudslides have claimed at least 21 lives in Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez declared a state of emergency in the state of Falcon, authorities said.
- Bolivian officials are denying a report in a U.S. diplomatic cable revealed Tuesday that President Evo Morales had a tumor in his nose.
- Bolivia, among the strongest opponents of the Copenhagen climate accord last year, assailed rich nations at Cancun climate talks on Tuesday but stopped short of threatening to disrupt the two-week conference.
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Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on Tuesday dismissed an offer of residency that a lower level official made to the embattled founder of the online whistle-blower WikiLeaks.
Southern Cone
Image: Márcio Cabral de Moura @ Flickr.
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1 Comment
[…] Floods and landslides from recent torrential rains have left many dead and thousands more homeless, with the government promising to build more public housing and Chávez allowing some of those stranded to stay in the presidential palace. […]
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