PRAY FOR COLOMBIA!

[Ocklawaha]

Red Cross Colombia, STATE OF EMERGENCY, poster, it says PLEASE DONATE

Oh my God people, these photos are from Colombia.  I've seen it rain or fizz Portland Oregon style for a couple of months but NEVER anything like what they have recieved in the last weeks. Every part of the city is in a state of disaster, rich and poor, entire neighborhoods are now at the bottom of the valley. I can tell you that my railroad is in "UNDER" a couple of these pictures. All of the work we did in the State of Antioquia appears lost.

If your church or favorite charity offers a chance to assist please do. The American Red Cross has a RELIEF FOR COLOMBIA site-fund. http://www.redcross.org/ see also:Hardest hit were the very poor mountain clinging neighborhoods above "BELLO", (pronounced BAY-yo). Bello is also home to both the Pacific Railway Yards as well as the yards and shops of the Medellin Metro Rail system.

Landslide buries up to 200 in Colombia: Red Cross

(AFP) â€" 5 days ago

MEDELLIN, Colombia â€" As many as 200 people may have been buried in a landslide Sunday that swept over 10 houses near Medellin, Colombia's second largest city, Red Cross relief workers said.

"The initial count is that there may be 150-200 people considered missing. So far, we have rescued three alive," said Cesar Uruena, a Red Cross operations deputy director.

"We are focused on moving rubble to see if we find survivors," he added.

The landslide struck the La Gabriela district of the town of Bello north of Medellin, just after 1900 GMT. Medellin lies 400 km (250 miles) northwest of Bogota.

"The landslide buried 10 houses, each of then with three stories. Because on Sundays people usually have their family over for lunch, we think that on average there were between 15 and 20 people in each house," Uruena explained.

About 300 residents of the neighborhood rushed to search for missing friends and many tried to help rescuers pull away the rubble, bit by twisted bit.

Antioquia Governor Luis Alfredo Ramos also was on the scene of the tragedy. Medellin lies in a valley and many poorer neighborhoods of sometimes precariously-built houses are stacked up the mountainsides where they are highly vulnerable to heavy weather.

Faced with the dire situation, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos hurried home from the Ibero-American summit in Mar del Plata in Argentina.

His government was weighing a state of emergency hoping to free up more funds for the country's widespread weather and flood-related damage.

"This is going to cost a lot of money," Santos said referring to overall recovery effort. "Unfortunately, this tragedy has just kept growing."

As of last week, the government estimated weather related damage at more than 300 million dollars -- before the weekend's disasters.

Colombia has been lashed in recent weeks by heavy rains that have left at least 176 people dead and 225 injured, as well as 1.5 million people homeless nationwide.

And in neighboring Venezuela to the east, driving rains have triggered flooding and cave-ins that have killed 34 people over the past week and left an estimated 90,000 people homeless nationwide, officials said.

The non-stop storms were being blamed on atmospheric disturbances from La Nina, a phenomenon in which cooler-than-normal water circulates in the Pacific Ocean around the equator.

Closed major highways in Blue. Secondary and municipal roads not shown.


Where the FREEway ends in downtown Medellin, the freight railroad is in the grass between the road and river and can be seen just a tad to the left of the photo.



Bello rescue.


Bello neighborhood ruins.


Bogota - Medellin FREEway.


Bogota Downtown


Downtown Bogota


SHIT! Bolombo, Colombia, where the railroad is or WAS right behind these buildings alongside the river, it was our temporary terminal for the reconstruction of the Medellin - Cali mainline!


Habitantes del municipio de Jamundí, al suroeste de Colombia

OCKLAWAHA