Christian Message Boards: 45,000 Homeless in Venezuela Floods

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Posted by Kindgo (Member # 2) on :

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20020724_774.html

GUASDUALITO, Venezuela July 24 — Venezuela's military evacuated hundreds of people Wednesday and delivered tons of food and medicines to at least 45,000 citizens who lost their homes in flooding.

Five people were killed in the southwestern state of Apure as rivers overflowed, creating lakes of stagnant water filled with dead animals, trash and sewage.

Much of the town of Guasdualito, population 25,000, remained under 6 feet of water Wednesday. By boat and by canoe, army troops and residents went from house to house searching for victims. Soldiers rescued students who had been trapped on the second floor of a high school since Monday.

At least 45,000 people were displaced by the flooding, the government news agency Venpres said.

Officials warned that diarrhea, dehydration and hunger could create a health emergency. Eighty percent of Guasdualito's homes were flooded, said Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.

"Everything I own is underwater. Nothing's left," said Elizandro Alvarado, a 35-year-old laborer who with 17 other people was evacuated by army truck. "I'm devastated. The only thing keeping me going is that my wife and my two sons are OK."

Guasdualito's cemetery was invisible under stagnant, brown water. Hundreds of people built makeshift shelters with tarpaulins, cardboard boxes and debris. Others slept in churches and schools or left the area in trucks loaded with mattresses, iceboxes and bags of clothing.

Troops airlifted tons of food, drinking water, clothing and medicines to affected towns near the Colombian border. Hundreds of refugees were taken by C-130 aircraft to nearby Barinas and Tachira states, while army engineers repaired roads and bridges and dug ditches to drain stagnant fields.

Three people were electrocuted while trying to salvage appliances in their flooded homes, and a child drowned in a river, said army Gen. Carlos Acosta.

Authorities said more rain in the low-lying plains,375 miles southwest of Caracas, could exacerbate the flooding. At least 80,000 200,000 acres of farmland was underwater, and 20 percent of the region's cattle and crops were lost.