Forty-six people are missing in southern Ecuador in a landslide caused by heavy rains on the night of Sunday 26 to Monday 27 March.

The landslide killed seven people and injured 23, Ecuadorian authorities said Monday in a new assessment. A first official assessment reported 16 dead and seven missing.

A huge brownish mudslide suddenly descended from the green mountains surrounding Alausi, home to some 45,000 people.

Several dozen houses were buried in the town located about 300 km south of Quito, in an Andean area hit last week by an earthquake that killed fifteen people, including one in neighboring Peru.

Nearly 500 people in total were affected by the flow, on a mountain-clinging neighborhood on the northeastern outskirts of the city.

"We are on the street, nine members of my family have died. They are buried," said survivor Luis Gonzales, interviewed in tears by a local TV station. The man continued to look for his sister in the rubble, without much hope, because he was told that "everything is covered".

Rescue operations and humanitarian assistance in place

Local media footage showed dozens of rescue workers and civilians bustling around the debris trying to pull out buried people in a ballet of ambulances with flashing lights and sirens.

"The government is totally active, focused on the tragedy of Alausi," responded on Twitter Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, assuring that teams of firefighters were at work since the early hours of the morning "to help the citizens affected".

La ayuda para Alausí llega de todas partes. No están solos, todo el país está con ustedes. El Gobierno del Ecuador no ha escatimado recursos para las labores de rescate, para proveer de lo necesario a los afectados y devolver la esperanza a los ciudadanos. #CruzadaPorLaGente pic.twitter.com/YnMZcwDPq6

— Guillermo Lasso (@LassoGuillermo) March 27, 2023

The area where the tragedy occurred had been on "yellow alert" since February for the risk of landslides, due to severe weather affecting the region in recent weeks.

Authorities had also warned of a possible collapse of the E35 road in the Casual area, where part of the mountain had broken off.

The Chimborazo governor's office said it was preparing food collection centers to help those affected. The armed forces are involved in relief operations and in the delivery of materials to build temporary shelters.

For its part, the local Red Cross provided "pre-hospital care" to the victims. Residents of nearby villages also arrived in the early hours of the morning to participate in the rescue operations.

987 incidents caused by bad weather since January

The city of Alausi is known worldwide for the "Devil's Nose", a steep slope through which Ecuador's Trans-Andean railway line passes, a stretch nicknamed the "most difficult train in the world" because of its dangerousness.

Since January, heavy rains have already left 22 people dead and 346 homeless in the country. More than 6,900 homes were damaged and 72 were destroyed, according to authorities. Some 987 incidents were caused by severe weather, such as flooding and landslides.

In February, rains led to a five-day suspension of crude oil pumping because an oil pipeline threatened to break after a bridge collapsed.

With AFP

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