Bogota Colombia is receiving international aid to combat dozens of forest fires that have several municipalities on high alert due to the high temperatures caused by the El Niño meteorological phenomenon. Peru delivered a high-capacity firefighting system on Saturday.
The last available report from the Risk and Disaster Management Unit (UNGRD), published in X’s account, numbered 24 active scourges in seven departments and in Bogotá. Some 304 have been turned off, according to the balance sheet.
Gustavo Petro declared on Thursday a state of disaster and public calamity throughout the territory and activated the call for international support to the United Nations and the European Union.
On the sixth day of tasks to mitigate the fires that multiplied since Monday, a fire fighting system arrived from Peru that includes 220 containers with a storage capacity of 1,100 liters of water, it was reported from the ministry’s X account. defense.
The containers release the loads from the air “and create a rain effect with great precision on large fires,” the message added.
Peruvian Air Force Colonel Víctor Vargas highlighted that they have been working on a rapid joint cooperation exercise to address these natural disasters “which are going to come with more violence and faster within the framework of climate change.”
The day before, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) reported on the social network .
“Red alert”
On Saturday, the red alert due to “high probability of fires” was reported in the regions of the Caribbean, Pacific, Los Andes, Orinoquía and Amazonia, indicated the report from the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam).
According to authorities, the department of Cundinamarca, whose capital is Bogotá, in the central Andean part of the country, is among the most affected. In the capital, there is also a zone alert declaration in the southwest due to poor air quality.
The mayor of Bogotá, Carlos Galán, pointed out the day before that 95% of the active outbreaks in the eastern hills were controlled, although not liquidated, while the largest one in the El Cable hill is being fought, where the winds make extinction tasks difficult. .
More than 500 personnel from relief agencies and public forces are working to mitigate fires in the capital.
According to authorities, 95% of fires are caused by man, either involuntarily or intentionally. At least seven people have been arrested for their alleged participation in causing the fires.
So far, more than 17,000 hectares have been affected by the fires nationwide, according to the UNGRD.
Source: AP
