Early Saturday, James and Herminio Palacio saw the massive landslide that buried their brother and dozens of other people the day before on the Quibdó-Medellín highway near El Carmen de Atrato (Chocó). They arrived at the scene with the suspicion that Pedro Leonel Palacio might still be alive, as well as about 20 wounded who had been brought to Medellín that night. But seconds after they arrived, they learned that rescue workers were carrying Pedro's body up the slope that separates the river and the road. “It was already in the bag,” they say, referring to some white bags stacked next to a prosecutor’s truck.
The brothers Herminio and James Palacio at the site of the collapse. Nastassia Kantorowicz Torres
Pedro, who worked as a security guard, is one of the 33 dead found between Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Like most of those affected, he was traveling from Quibdó to Medellín when heavy rain caused a landslide that swept away the house where dozens of undecided travelers were taking shelter as they waited for the storm to subside. Contrary to the expectations of Peter's brothers, no person was rescued alive on Saturday morning. The victims who have yet to be found are buried deeper than the wounded who were evacuated at night and have lower chances of survival.
The slide occurred around four o'clock in the afternoon on Friday. At kilometer 17 the road was closed due to a minor landslide that had occurred a few meters away a few hours earlier. Many travelers had already returned to Quibdó, but others remained expecting to continue on their way when weather conditions improved. Alberto Olaya and Rocío Masso, a farmer and retired kindergarten teacher from Carmen de Atrato, opened the doors of their house on the road to offer shelter to travelers. Now the house no longer exists and has been replaced by tons of mud that extends about 30 meters down to the river.
A firefighter takes suitcases out of a car that has been completely destroyed by the collapse. Nastassia Kantorowicz Torres
The improvised rescue control center is on the side of the road, a few meters from the collapse. A plaque in the battle tent shows that 239 people were involved in the rescue. These include military personnel, firefighters, police officers, civil defense officers, prosecutors and members of the indigenous guard. The location has changed radically compared to the previous afternoon. The intense midday sun has replaced the rain and darkness. The place was also filled with people from all over the world. The natives of the neighboring communities, who emphasize their friendship with the owners of the buried house, are no longer the only rescuers.
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Among the new rescuers is John Arrovaye, a 26-year-old from Antioquia who works for Latinco, the company that owns the concession for the road. He is part of the team responsible for maintaining the road. Signs along the route warn of the usual rockfalls. He's used to moving through rubble, but has never had to help recover bodies. He comments that he was shocked that the first person he saved that day was a girl and that he thought that one day he might be the one who ended up buried.
The bodies of the people rescued in the collapse area. Nastassia Kantorowicz Torres
As they rest, John and his companions point out that the authorities had explained to them some protocols for rescuing the victims that morning. “If part of the body is trapped in the mud, no pulling is necessary. The idea is not to dismember them,” they say. You will need to dig around the visible part to expose the rest of the body and be able to remove it easily.
The governor and the mayor
The camp is seething as an army helicopter lands, sending a cloud of dust into the area. Minutes later, the mayor of Carmen de Atrato and the governor of Chocó, Farlin Perea Renteria, appear at the command post. He describes to her in detail what has happened in the last few hours. There is clearly no indication of how many missing people there are. Neither the owner of the buried house nor his daughter have been found, which the mayor said suggests there could be many more like them. “We don’t know exactly, Governor, how many people we are missing. “They say there were 70 in the house, they say there were 80,” he says.
The governor of Chocó, Nubia Carolina Córdoba, visits the area. Nastassia Kantorowicz Torres
The mayor reiterates that the company is not short of staff, but does need more resources. “I want to tell you that we are working with our nails, the civil defense didn't even have a stretcher,” he complains. “My people are poor and farmers. It only takes three days to serve 239 people,” he added. Both the local president and the head of the Envigado (Antioquia) fire department, Héctor Ortega, insist that they need to obtain machinery that will allow them to start excavations at greater depths. “At the tip of a pickaxe and a plate, it will be impossible to find those that are a meter or a meter and a half lower,” emphasizes Ortega.
Governor Córdoba is a 33-year-old lawyer who has revived hope for change in a ministry weary of apathy and where poverty rates top 50%. Partially agrees with the diagnosis regarding lack of resources. “With this information, I believe that both the ministry and the community are not prepared for such an emergency,” he said. But this is where the harmony with the mayor ends. Córdoba is annoyed by the injury numbers that do not match what they have and what is on the board. He later expresses concern about the possibility that several bodies are not in the search area but downstream.
Relatives of those still missing in the collapse, Nastassia Kantorowicz Torres
Córdoba pauses for a moment to respond to the mayor's concerns about sending the bodies to Medellín and not to Quibdó, the capital of the department and the place of origin of most of the dead. Several relatives fear that the prosecutor's office has to take the bodies so far – there are 230 kilometers between the two cities – because Quibdó does not have the capacity to process so many corpses. The governor assures the mayor that the department will guarantee the transfer of the bodies to Quibdó once the necessary procedures have been carried out in Medellín. It is the most concrete promise of a visit whose priority is to obtain information.
Waiting in front of the tent are several relatives who have already identified the bodies of their loved ones, which are lined up in white bags on the floor of a restricted area. They hope that the prosecutor's office will load the bodies onto a truck that will take them to Medellín, as happened early this morning with the first 17 bodies found. After the meeting, the governor approaches them, expresses her condolences and promises that they will soon return from Medellín and be in Quibdó. Then he hugs her.
These relatives include Alex Pino and Yessid Perea, ex-partner and cousin of Leidi Laura Mosquera, respectively. They explain that she was working in a restaurant in Medellín but had visited them in Quibdó during the end-of-year holidays and was returning home when the collapse occurred. Despite the hours that have passed since his cousin was identified, Yessid still carries with him the shovel he arrived with that morning to dig through the rubble. Like James and Herminio Palacio, he also states that he believed he had a chance of finding her alive. As he says goodbye, other relatives prepare to continue the search for the missing people who are still buried.
View of the first landslide on the Quibdó-Medellín road.Nastassia Kantorowicz Torres
Cristian Correa, the family psychologist
Cristian Correa Villa is a young psychologist at the San Roque Hospital in Carmen de Atrato. He arrives at the camp in the late afternoon, when the movement has already subsided and the relatives of the victims are the ones who remain in the search area. He says that in the first hours after the collapse he went looking for a mother he had met on Friday. She had been rescued, but her son lay in the rubble. “She said she wouldn’t leave here until she found him. I guess he found it, otherwise he would be here,” he says. “I hope you call me when you need me,” he adds.
The psychologist explains that in the morning he took care of a woman who arrived at the San Roque Hospital from Medellín. He was looking for his daughter, who lived in Quibdó, and traveled to the capital of Antioquia to visit her on the night of the collapse. However, when he arrived at the hospital, he learned that the body was already in Medellín. Cristian then began what he calls “psychological first aid.” “Often it’s not what they’re told. It's about listening to her, asking her about her daughter and letting her tell me,” she says.
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