They have especially impacted indigenous peoples. The rains have also left five people injured, 1,601 evacuated and 20 sheltered
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File photo. According to the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (Conred), this year the rainy season that began in May (EFE/Esteban Biba)
The heavy rains that affect Guatemala have left 11 dead and 251,668 affected since the current season began in early May, especially due to landslides in indigenous towns, Civil Protection reported Tuesday.
A count by the Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (Conred) details that rains have also left five people injured, 1,601 evacuated and 20 housed.< /p>
The report by Conred, the entity in charge of Civil Protection in the country, also specifies the damage to infrastructure and accumulates 671 homes with slight, moderate and severe damage, three schools and 46 roads affected, none destroyed, four bridges affected and one destroyed.
Likewise, it indicates that between Monday and this Tuesday 18 incidents were reported, leaving 33,696 people affected.
The rains have causedmudflows, floods, structural collapses, landslides, subsidence and strong winds in eight of the 22 departments that make up this Central American country.
In the short time 11 fatalities have been reported, including 10 due to landslides and a man dragged by a strong current of water.
Among those killed by avalanches are< b> a mother and her six children, as well as three other younger siblings in two indigenous regions, the poorest population in the nation, where almost 60% of its 17 million inhabitants live in poverty.
File photo. In the short period of time, 11 fatalities have already been reported (EFE/Saul Martinez)
In Guatemala, last year the incidents associated with the rains left some35 dead, three missing, 17 injured, almost 1.5 million people affected and 11,911 evacuated.
Every year, the rainy season that begins in early May and usually extends into November, leaving dozens and even hundreds of deaths in Central America, one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change.
The considered great attractions of the Central American territory play against it in the face of global warming. The mountain ranges that cross the region from north to south have become a latent danger due to the soil sediments that are dragged down the land with the altered rainy seasons and the paradisiacal coasts of the Pacific and Atlantic are losing ground due to rising sea levels.
Experts consulted by the Voice of America agree that the region< /b> is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world to global warming, for various reasons ranging from population density, land use and the alterations typical of the dry and rainy seasons that have disrupted climate patterns and have repercussions on human activity.
By focusing the lens on the Northern Triangle of Central America there is no doubt that the situation tends to worsen, says climate change expert Ricardo Álvarez to VOA; He has studied the global phenomenon since the 1990s, making contributions together with other experts in the field to mitigate the effects.
To this are added the economic costs of global warming that, according to a report prepared by the climate change expert of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Omar Samayoa, in the last 3 decades the Northern Triangle of Central America has recorded losses of 11.4 billion dollars due to the effect of the phenomenon .
(With information from AFP and Voice of America)