International
Alausí, in Ecuador, is still at risk a year after the gigantic avalunc that left 75 dead
A year after 75 people died from an allh in Alausí, this population of the Andes of Ecuador gradually rises with the effort of its inhabitants, who continue to live under the danger of new landslides while waiting for official help for reconstruction.
On the night of March 26, 2023, thousands of tons of land buried more than fifty houses. It took the relief agencies about three months to rescue the bodies in the midst of the pain and anguish of relatives and neighbors, who joined the work.
Now, in the anglum area, some herbs have begun to cover the land that swallowed part of the population.
“With our machinery we have made some stabilization for the protection of the margin of the homes that were left (safe),” the mayor of Alausí, Remigio Roldán, told EFE.
Without a “concrete response from the State,” he said, “Alausí allied with universities and non-governmental organizations” to solve different problems left by the landslide,” such as the destruction of a water conduction system that fed 8,000 inhabitants.
“Thanks to the European Union (EU) we are receiving funding of about two million dollars for the new system of collection, conduction and re-empowering of the drinking water treatment plant for the 8,000 inhabitants,” Roldán reported.
The mayor highlighted the efforts of the inhabitants to rehabilitate an important road, which connects the south with the center of the Andean region of Ecuador, where they opened a path in the middle of the ‘ground zero’ to peak and shovel.
In addition, about 18 million dollars are needed to stabilize the slope of the entire perimeter of the landslide.
“We can’t let it stay as it is. In the upper part of the collapse we have two communities that do not have a sewer system, we still have septic wells, the problem is still latent,” he said.
Therefore, last February, at the visit of a group of diplomats from European countries, headed by the EU ambassador, Charles-Michel Geurts, the situation was exposed, since the representatives visited the province of Chimborazo – of which Alausí is a part – to analyze potential aid in various sectors.
Geurts highlighted the admiration they have for Alausí, for its people, resilience and vision of the future, while his counterpart from France, Frédéric Desagneaux, mentioned the willingness of the EU for accompaniment in the restoration of the dynamism of Alausí.
The mayor numbered 75 people who died in the all. and pointed out that they have not been able to rescue nine “who remained among the rubble” in the area where 163 families lived.
According to the latest official report of the tragedy, published in November by the Secretariat of Risk Management, there are 65 deceased and 10 who are officially listed with the status of “disappeared” after not being able to find their bodies.
The victims reached 800. “Some,” said Roldán, “have had to emigrate, some are renting apartments, rooms, others are where the relatives are.”
By following the area at risk, they have not allowed the return of the inhabitants to the houses that were left standing on the banks of the avalh: “We do not want to lose more lives. We warn that the problem is still latent, we have a part (in the) that continues to give way to the cracks.”
“We demand the Government to give homes,” Roldán stressed, adding that the investment of 1.5 million dollars has been budgeted for the construction of 57 homes and, although they have the land to carry out the works, they have not made progress because the Government has changed, which has been led by President Daniel Noboa since November 23.
In addition, apart from the allanch polygon, there are two schools with 800 students, who cannot return to their classrooms if the slope is not stabilized.
“We are improvising in other infrastructures that were abandoned for the boys to receive classes,” he said.
Roldán comments that they do not have “the concrete support” of the Government in roads and housing. “We have to adjust to living in the middle of this reality, making all our effort, as a small government (mayor’s office), as communities, as organizations,” he noted.
He recalled that in a visit to Alausí hours after the tragedy occurred, then-President Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023), offered to invest 8 million dollars, but “not a single penny in immediate actions” has not yet been specified.
He lamented that none of the 186 rural communities of Alausí has drinking water, sewerage or sanitation, and pointed out that the State must disburse the 50% advance of a contract for the construction of a hospital, whose cost is around 23 million dollars, but that does not advance either.
In January, the Secretariat of Risk Management presented the roadmap for the recovery of Alausí, with a budget of 10 million dollars financed mainly by international cooperation to rebuild the road that connects with Riobamba, the provincial capital, as well as housing solutions and the delivery of bonds for vulnerable people, among other actions.
International
China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”
The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.
That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”
“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.
Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”
In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”
This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.
The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.
Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.
For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.
International
Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants
The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.
According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.
The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”
The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.
The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”
These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.
International
Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”
“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.
The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.
“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.
Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.
“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.
The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.
Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.
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