Colombia Landslide

Sunday a terrible landslide hit a suburb of Medellin, Colombia.  As of yesterday rescuers were still trying to find survivors, even though there is a slim chance.  In situations like these you usually have a 48 hour window to rescue someone.  The reason for this landslide and why it is taking so long for rescuers to dig into the Earth is the fact that they have been hit by severe rainstorms.  So far 43 bodies have been found, while there is still 100 missing and presumed dead.  This landslide was extra dangerous because it happened on Sunday when most people gather for meals.  The slide which covered 50 homes is just one of many that have been occuring in Columbia.  So far 194 people have been killed, another 1.6 million have been affected, 2,000 homes have been destroyed, and over 200,000 other homes have been damaged in these torrential rains.  These areas are especially vulnerable to landslides because they are a poor country.  There is probably not much education about landslides and it probablly happened so fast while people were sitting down that there was nothing they could do.  Even the rescue operations are not very good.  As you can see in the video I posted below the rescuers are mostly other villagers.  They are trying so hard to dig that they are actually stabbing into the ground with shovels.  Even if there would be survivors it looks like they could easily be killed by one of the rescuers. 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/12/08/colombia.landslide/index.html