News Home Page Costa Rica Latin America Sections Special Reports Travel/Tourism Real Estate Business Health The Internet Letters Opinion Columnists Leisure EroTica Entertainment The Take! Learn Spanish Photos Editorial Letters Opinion Columnists Public Forum Who We Are About Us Contact Us Advertise with us Subscribe to our Newsletter Links Page     SPECIAL REPORTS - Tuesday 15 February 2005 < Back   Send this Page To a Friend SOUTH AMERICA: Rains Claim At Least 80 Lives in Three Countries Humberto Márquez CARACAS,  (IPS) - The unusually heavy rainfall that has pounded Colombia, Guyana and Venezuela over the past few weeks has left more than 80 dead, 100 missing, 100,000 families homeless, wiped out a number of bridges and caused severe damages to roads and highways and tens of thousands of hectares of farmland. The rain was caused by barometric depressions that occurred outside of the normal rainy season, which stretches from May to October in this northern portion of South America. The disaster came on the eve of the Feb. 16 entry into effect of the Kyoto Protocol, the global convention on climate change. ”Mathematically it is impossible to demonstrate that the current atmospheric phenomena are a product of climate change...but it is obvious that the environment is affected by unsustainable meddling,” the president of the Venezuelan environmental organisation Vitalis, Diego Díaz, told IPS. Barometric depressions ”have always existed as out-of-season phenomena, but their recurrence could be one of the reactions by the planet, whose temperature will perhaps rise by six degrees over the next 50 years, while the sea level may rise 90 centimetres,” said the activist. Luis Inciarte, with the non-governmental rescue and maritime safety organisation, Onsa, said ”the temperatures of the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are high, which favours intertropical convergence over the waters of the Atlantic, which spins, absorbing nearby clouds, and that triggers continuous rainfall.” The rains hit northern Venezuela in the second week of February, and Caracas received a record of 84.7 mm of rain on Feb. 8 (84.7 litres per square metre), the highest level since 1951, when 72.9 mm were recorded. On Feb. 8 alone, at least 14 people died, many more were injured, and several went missing. The emergency affected seven of the country's 24 regions, and left thousands homeless. The rains uncovered dozens of graves in the main cemetery in the capital, and schools and universities were closed for the entire week. In Colombia, meanwhile, the rain hit the departments (states) of Santander and Norte de Santander on the northeastern border with Venezuela, where 28 people were killed, mainly in the city of Girón, near Bucaramanga. Some 5,000 homes were destroyed, leaving 30,000 homeless. The rains also hit the department of Tolima, southwest of Bogota, where at least six were killed and 1,150 families lost their homes. In addition, a child was killed in a landslide in Huila, farther south. Colombia's Hydrology Institute blamed a cold front over the Caribbean. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe called on the private sector to help rebuild the 5,000 homes that were destroyed, and to repair a similar number that were damaged. Constanza Martínez at the Hydrology Institute said that in 12 regions of Colombia warnings had been issued on the possibility of sudden flooding of streams and rivers. In several places, up to 128 mms of rain have fallen, more than double the critical level. Farther to the north, in Venezuela, the western flank of the Andes mountains was hammered by severe rains, which especially affected small towns like Santa Cruz de Mora, Tovar and Bailadores, in the southeastern state of Mérida, as well as the plains just to the south of Lake Maracaibo, which is an important agricultural area. In Mérida, 13 people were reported dead and 43 missing, while major damages were caused, with small isolated communities temporarily left without electricity, water or fuel supplies. The death toll has climbed to 33 in Venezuela so far, but based on his familiarity with the local communities, Archbishop of Mérida, Baltasar Porras said there may be many more victims. The Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez has assigned 52 million dollars in emergency aid, and announced that it would earmark another 500 million dollars for a fund for new settlements and housing complexes. The aim is to transfer families from high-risk areas in the highly populated central coastal area in northern Venezuela, which was hit hard by rain and landslides for the second time in just six years. In December 1999, severe rains and landslides destroyed Caribbean coastal settlements near Caracas, claiming an estimated 10,000 lives. Chávez, who has been criticised by his opponents for the way the task of rebuilding that part of the coast and the adoption of disaster prevention measures have been handled, said ”the powerful countries” are also to blame, because ”they won't listen”. ”The Kyoto Protocol, global warming, how the earth's balance is affected, are phenomena that arise from the world's ecological problems,” said the president. The U.S. government of George W. Bush withdrew from the Protocol, which had been signed by Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton (1993-2001). Under the international agreement, which goes into effect Wednesday, industrialised countries will be obligated to cut their greenhouse gas emissions five percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The United States is responsible for 25 percent of these emissions, which trap heat in the atmosphere and cause the so-called greenhouse effect. Farther to the east, Guyana, the only English-speaking South American nation, also licked its wounds after extremely heavy rains and flooding in January led to the deaths of 25 people, several of whom were killed by an outbreak of leptospirosis that spread in flooded areas, affecting at least 90,000 families. Guyana lost 10 percent of the rice paddies in its coastal region, and the crop may not survive on another 50 percent. On Monday, four large pumps and dozens of small ones were removing water from the flooded areas, in many cases literally attempting to make entire villages re-emerge from the waters. The United States, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago provided Guyana with emergency aid, and the United Nations was attempting to drum up at least three million dollars to cover food shortages and provide medical aid in the most critical areas. President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo said efforts were needed to make the problem facing his country more visible, while he awaited the arrival Monday of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who flew to Georgetown after a 24-hour visit to Venezuela. Disasters like the rains in the northern part of South America ”pose the challenge, for non-governmental organisations as well as governments, of holding the international community responsible for a global effort to mitigate the impact of carbon dioxide emissions, which are heating up the planet,” said Díaz.