254 Dead In Colombia Mudslides, Including 43 Children

Colombian president sends message of hope as mudslide death toll climbs to at 254 including children. President Juan Manuel Santos who traveled to the southern town to personally oversee relief operations, warned the toll could keep climbing.

“We offer our prayers for all of them. We send our condolences and the entire country’s sympathies to their families” he said

With more than 200 were injured in the disaster, survivors and rescuers kept up a bleak search for victims in the muck and debris.

Covered in mud, 38-year-old Marta Gomez one of the victims said, “I went to look for my niece, but I couldn’t find her. I dug and dug and found what turned out to be a baby’s hand. It was horrible,” she said in a shelter set up for the newly homeless. As she stood in line waiting to register for government assistance for those who lost their houses, Gomez told AFP she had given up on finding her niece.

“The mud took her away. I’ll never see her again,” she said, clinging to the leash of her equally muddy German shepherd.

Rescuers worked in stifling heat under a cloudy sky in the remote Amazon town, the capital of Putumayo department.

The debris left by the mudslides was everywhere: buried cars, uprooted trees, children’s toys and stray shoes sticking up out of the mud.