By IANS
Bogota : At least three people have been killed and an unspecified number are missing in Colombia after torrential rain triggered a mudslide in Tolima province, the Spanish EFE news agency reported Thursday.
According to officials, three bodies have been found since the landslide Wednesday hit Playa Rica, a hamlet in the central province.
The hamlet was flooded after the Guadalito Las Pavas stream burst its banks following heavy rain, the news agency said.
Among the four affected municipalities, San Antonio is the hardest-hit, in which more than 60 houses were submerged and most of the standing crops destroyed.
Samuel Calderon, the emergency services chief in Tolima, said there was “a very strong landslide around where the Guadalito stream passes on one side of the built-up area of Playa Rica”.
The hamlet’s residents were awakened early Wednesday by a loud noise and some managed to escape their homes before the mudslide hit, the official said.
Rescue workers and supplies were sent from Ibague and the neighbouring town of Rovira to help find the missing in Playa Rica.
Colombian Red Cross also said the country has seen floods in more than 20 provinces since March affecting more than 900,000 people across the country.
At least 98 people have been killed and 139 injured this year in flood-related disasters in the country, the Red Cross said.