The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has declared this Sunday a disaster situation in the whole country due to the heavy rains of the last days that have caused floods, overflows and landslides affecting 27 of the 32 Colombian departments and about 46,000 families. “Due to what is happening in these days, a disaster situation is declared throughout the country due to climate variability, which generates unpredictable and unusual impacts, increasing vulnerability in the territories”, said the president in a press conference after an emergency committee -Puesto de Mando Unificado (PMU) - (Unified Command Post).

The declaration will be for the whole country, but efforts will focus on three areas “with a much larger scale”, in Petro's words, who indicated that they are the north of the department of La Guajira, the entire department of Chocó and Bogotá “due to shortage of drinking water”. “What makes a statement of these is that we can, from the decree, transfer budgetary resources of the nation today in other entities that do not have to do with this type of attention to the regions that are being climatic victims of the current situation”, has detailed the president, to add that the rainy season will extend throughout the month of December.

The heavy rains that have fallen in recent days in Colombia have wreaked havoc in several regions of the country, affecting a total of 27 of the 32 departments, including floods, overflows in rivers and streams, and landslides affecting 46,000 families. “In the consolidated we are talking about 186 municipalities in 27 departments, with 467 registered events and nearly 46,000 families could be affected,” explained the director of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), Carlos Carrillo.

he department of Chocó is the most affected for the moment, with 22 municipalities affected and more than 30,000 families affected, according to the preliminary figures offered by Carrillo, who indicated that for the moment there are no victims or missing persons. The departmental risk management committee of Chocó has declared, in fact, a public calamity after the serious affectations in the region.

In the department of Santander, the flooding of the Las Cruces stream caused damage in the municipality of San Vicente de Chucurí, leaving one person dead and two missing. Bogota was also affected in recent days, with flooding on the highway leading to the capital due to heavy rainfall, as well as in the department of La Guajira, with more than 10,000 families affected by flooding.