A woman has died and four children have been injured after the collapse of a four-story building in Barranquillathe main city in the Colombian Caribbean, local authorities reported tonight after finishing the search and rescue efforts.
According to the Secretary of Communications of the Mayor’s Office of Barranquilla, Ricardo Villa, the four minors are out of danger after being transferred to healthcare centers where they received medical attention.
The mayor’s office noted, through a statement, that progress is being made in the census of families who still have belongings on the site, as well as those who will be provided with a space to spend the night.
The Risk Management Office also reported that they were other nearby buildings evacuated to the site in order to evaluate the condition they are in and ensure that no more people are affected.
The building was on a hillside
The collapsed building is in the Campo Alegre sector, a hillside area where several housing developments were built in the early 2000s and where residents had to evacuate due to landslides.
According to the information provided by the Secretary of Communications, before the incident occurred in the buildings of that neighborhood 58 people from 17 families were living there.
“Tonight people are going to sleep in a safe place and later we are going to hold a risk management council to look at the actions that will be taken in the future,” Villa explained.
Today many of Those buildings are abandoned. and they are shelters for homeless people, constituting a risk for those who live there.