President Guillermo Lasso arrived in the Alausí canton to verify the attention displayed in that town’s face of the landslide.
Tonight, Lasso recorded that the erection of a housing complex was immediately ordered to serve the affected population, the start of work to recover access roads to the canton and the drinking water system.
“Here is the government; I did not want the day to end without coming personally to express my solidarity, I wanted to do it first thing in the morning, and we have had problems with the weather and an agenda to fulfill also due to disaster actions in Machala,” said the president before a group of residents.
During the tour of the canton, several inhabitants asked him to have a reconstruction plan for the population, with a committee made up of inhabitants of the same canton; they also expressed their anger at what had been announced about the danger of displacement in the area. And they also insisted on the use of heavy machinery in the search for the disappeared.
Given this, the president said he could verify the search and rescue work deployed by teams from different entities at ground zero.
“Let’s keep hope and faith that we are going to find one of his living relatives and that if not, we will make every effort to deliver the bodies of his relatives to them,” he told the residents.
Lasso said that for now, the urgent thing is to recover the disappeared, and then they will focus on “defining those responsible.”
Lasso said that for now, the urgent thing is to recover the disappeared, and then they will focus on “defining those responsible.”
Tonight, in the middle of the visit, several inhabitants staged incidents. Some citizens blocked the passage to prevent the exit of public vehicles and made various claims.
Until the afternoon of this Monday, the Secretariat for Risk Management reported that seven people had died, despite having registered in the morning that there were 16.
The landslide in Alausí also caused houses in suburban neighborhoods and important public places to be buried. In addition, there were 500 people affected, 22 homeless, 23 injured, and 32 rescued.
Cristian Torres, director of the Secretariat for Risk Management, said that the first information from the fire rescuers reported 16 deaths; however, later, with the recovery of the bodies and their transfer to the morgue, the “error,” which was rectified with the figure of 7.
