In Maracay, the state capital of Aragua in northern Venezuela, deadly rivers of brown water flowed through the streets on Monday as heavy rain from a rainstorm poured down the city and caused a massive landslide.
A man walks in deep mud and debris in El Castaño, a neighbourhood in Maracay, the capital of the Venezuela northern Aragua State, on October 18, 2022, a day after intense rain caused floods and a mudslide that killed at least three people. - Mudslides devastated everything in their path -- sweeping away vehicles, trees and huge boulders, a week after another landslide nearby left 54 dead
Deadly Flood
According to Reuters, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday that a landslide in Maracay's El Castao neighborhood had claimed at least three lives. Hundreds of people lost their houses, and scores of others perished due to the region's weeks of heavy rain.
The catastrophic disaster was most likely caused by torrential rain from an isolated thunderstorm in the mountains outside of the city, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls, even though no weather-reporting stations in Maracay registered precipitation on Monday.
A dam overflowed due to the heavy rain, causing a flash flood that swept automobiles, big boulders, and trees down a road near El Castao. According to Al Jazeera, around 50 houses were affected, and several locals needed to be evacuated.
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Citizens are Scared
A resident walks past a car stuck in the middle of debris in El Castaño, a neighbourhood in Maracay, the capital of the Venezuela northern Aragua State, on October 18, 2022, a day after intense rain caused floods and a mudslide that killed at least three people. - Mudslides devastated everything in their path -- sweeping away vehicles, trees and huge boulders, a week after another landslide nearby left 54 dead.
Jose Dos Santos, 56, a resident of Maracay, said to AFP: "I was staring towards the mountain. The rain was hard. We heard a boom, and when I saw water flowing through the windows, I grabbed my family, and we went up."
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A guy was almost carried away in his automobile in a social media video as the seas raged through the streets. Angel Jesus Diaz Escobar caught the dramatic seconds the driver was able to get out of his car before it went away. Maracay homeowner Arturo Betancourt told The Washington Post that he would have been trapped in the perilous floodwaters if his vehicle hadn't broken down on the way home from work. He said that his automobile had stalled due to a mechanic making a mistake while installing a new GPS. Betancourt resumed the remainder of the journey on foot when a coworker offered to drop him off closer to home. Betancourt was drenched in water and could hear the raging floodwaters by the time he arrived on the street he usually turned onto with his car. Betancourt told The Post, "I was saturated in water and getting trapped in the muck. But in the meanwhile, the street I would have regularly traveled home was being washed by a landslide, and my car would have been involved. Nelida Rodriguez, a different resident, told AFP that the avalanche was "horrendous." Rodriguez said, "I've been here for 70 years and have never seen this."
Many Fatalities
At least 54 people have perished, and hundreds have lost their houses in the town of Las Tejerias, some 30 miles to the east of Maracay, as a result of many landslides brought on by severe rainfall. The number of fatalities, according to officials, might reach 100 as they continue to look for survivors. And it's not anticipated that the rain will stop soon. In the highlands of north-central and northwest Venezuela, as well as in the country's south, Nicholls predicts that isolated thunderstorms will likely continue to be possible during the following week. Streets in some regions where the water has started to recede are littered with trash and garbage, and what little is left of some dwellings is caked in mud.
Juan Guaidó, who the US has acknowledged as Venezuela's president, stated on Twitter on Monday that "the rain should not imply suffering for our people." Disasters caused by nature are unavoidable, but we can be ready for them and learn from them.
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