Tag Archives: Colombia

254, including 43 children, die in mudslides in Colombia.

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Devastating mudslides in the Colombian town of Mocoa killed at least 254 people including 43 children, President Juan Manuel Santos said Sunday, as survivors described gruesome scenes amid the ruins.

Santos, who traveled to the southern town to personally oversee relief operations, warned the toll could keep climbing.

“Unfortunately, these are still preliminary figures,” he wrote on Twitter, after giving an earlier toll of 210.

More than 200 were injured in the disaster.

Survivors and rescuers kept up a bleak search for victims in the muck and debris.

Covered in mud, 38-year-old Marta Gomez told of going to search for her missing niece — and making a chilling find instead.

“I went to look for my niece, but I couldn’t find her. I dug and dug and found what turned out to be a baby’s hand. It was horrible,” she said in a shelter set up for the newly homeless.

As she stood in line waiting to register for government assistance for those who lost their houses, Gomez told AFP she had given up on finding her niece.

“The mud took her away. I’ll never see her again,” she said, clinging to the leash of her equally muddy German shepherd.

Rescuers worked in stifling heat under a cloudy sky in the remote Amazon town, the capital of Putumayo department.

The debris left by the mudslides was everywhere: buried cars, uprooted trees, children’s toys and stray shoes sticking up out of the mud.

 

Source: AFP

Bodies Of Colombia Plane Crash Victims Flown Home

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The bodies of the 71 victims killed in a plane crash in Colombia that wiped out a Brazilian football team returned home Friday, as mourners prepared a massive funeral.

Along the road to the airport, hundreds of people brandished flowers, white balloons and Colombian flags to pay a final farewell to the victims of Monday’s tragedy.

The remains of the first victim, Paraguayan crew member Gustavo Encina, were handed over to his family early Friday in a coffin draped in his country’s flag.

The other victims — 64 Brazilians, five Bolivians and a Venezuelan — were flown home on a series of flights throughout the day.

“What we want now more than anything else is to go home, to take our friends and brothers home. The wait is the worst,” said Roberto Di Marche, a cousin of football team Chapecoense Real’s late director Nilson Folle Junior.

In the club’s hometown, the southern Brazilian city of Chapeco, more than 100,000 people — about half the city’s population — are expected to attend a memorial service Saturday in honor of the team, whose fairytale season was tragically cut short.

FIFA chief Gianni Infantino canceled a trip to Australia to attend the funeral.

Officials said Brazilian President Michel Temer would likely travel to Chapeco as well.

“The #Chapecoense will remain in our memory for their perseverance and tenacity. I reiterate my deepest solidarity with relatives of the victims,” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos wrote on Twitter as the last plane departed.

The bodies will be carried during a funeral procession through the city, ending with a ceremony at the team’s stadium.

Read More:

http://guardian.ng/news/bodies-of-colombia-plane-crash-victims-flown-home/

JUST IN: Colombian police say only 5 people survived plane crash.

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The Latest on the Colombia plane crash involving members of a Brazilian soccer team (all times local):

4:25 a.m.

Colombian police say that five people have survived a plane crash near Medellin’s international airport and the rest of the passengers have been killed.

Gen. Jose Acevedo, head of police in the area surrounding Medellin, provided the information.

A chartered aircraft with 81 people on board, including the Brazilian first division Chapecoense soccer team which was heading to Colombia for a regional tournament final, crashed on its way to Medellin’s international airport.

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3:55 a.m.

The vice president of the Brazilian first division soccer team Chapecoense, whose plane crashed in Colombia, says that the Brazilian city where the team is from is in tears.

Ivan Tozzo said that Chapeco, a city of 200,000 residents in southern Brazil, is already in tears after the crash in Colombia, which occurred before Wednesday’s final of Copa Sudamericana.

Tozzo told cable channel SporTV that “we are very sad, gathered here in the locker room of our stadium. We are still waiting for news. All our board is there, our players. We have nothing concrete on their state.”

He said that “There are a lot of people crying in our city, we could never imagine this. Chapecoense is the biggest reason for joy here. We hope there are many survivors, at least that most of them are OK.”

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2:55 a.m.

Brazilian first division soccer club Chapecoense has issued a brief statement after the plane carrying the team crashed in Colombia.

In a statement on its Facebook page, Chapecoense said “may God accompany our athletes, officials, journalists and other guests traveling with our delegation.”

The team said it would refrain from any further statements until it had fully evaluated the extent of the crash.

A chartered aircraft with 81 people on board, including the Chapecoense team which was heading to Colombia for a regional tournament final, crashed on its way to Medellin’s international airport.

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2:40 a.m.

A local mayor in Colombia says that at least three passengers have been rescued alive from the crash site after a plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team went down near Medellin.

Elkin Ospina, mayor of the La Ceja municipality outside Medellin, told Blu Radio that there may be more survivors but that access to the crash site is complicated.

The chartered aircraft with 81 people on board, including Brazilian first division soccer team Chapecoense which was heading to Colombia for a regional tournament final, crashed on its way to Medellin’s international airport.

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2:30 a.m.

The South American soccer federation has canceled all activities until further notice as a result of Monday’s crash in Colombia of a plane carrying Brazilian first division team Chapecoense.

The CONMEBOL federation said in a statement that its president, Alejandro Dominguez, is on his way to Medellin.

The first of the two-game Copa Sudamericana final was scheduled to be played Wednesday in Medellin between Chapecoense and Atletico Nacional.

The chartered aircraft with 81 people on board, including a Brazilian first division soccer team heading to Colombia for a regional tournament final, crashed on its way to Medellin’s international airport.

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2:10 a.m.

Local media in Colombia are reporting that a male passenger going by the name of Alan has arrived in an ambulance to a hospital near Medellin after the plane crash involving a Brazilian first division soccer team.

Blu Radio said the passenger arrived on a stretcher with an oxygen mask and covered in a blanket. He appeared to be alive.

The chartered plane was carrying 81 people, including the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil. The aircraft had made a stop in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and was on its way to Medellin’s international airport. The crash site is in a mountainous area outside Medellin.

The team was scheduled to play Wednesday in the first of a two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin.

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12:50 a.m.

Medellin’s mayor says that it is possible there are survivors in the plane crash in Colombia carrying players from a Brazilian soccer team.

Federico Gutierrez told Blu Radio that “it’s a tragedy of huge proportions.” The mayor on his way to the site in a mountainous area outside the city where the chartered aircraft is believed to have crashed shortly before midnight local time.

He said ambulances and rescuers were on their way. It is not clear what caused the crash.

Medellin’s airport confirmed that the aircraft, which departed from Bolivia, was transporting the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil, which was scheduled to play the Copa Sudamericana finals against Atletico Nacional on Wednesday in Medellin.

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12:25 a.m.

Authorities are responding to an emergency after an airplane with 72 people on board has crashed on its way to Medellin’s international airport.

Medellin’s international airport said on its Twitter account that the aircraft had departed from Bolivia.

It’s not clear if there are any survivors. But local media reported that the charter aircraft was carrying members of the soccer team Chapecoense from Brazil, which is scheduled to play Copa Sudamericana finals against Atletico Nacional on Wednesday in Medellin.

Why We Lost To Colombia– Siasia

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Samson Siasia, the Dream Team VI coach, admitted that some five major changes to his original team line up, failed to stop the Colombians from running away with a 0-2 defeat to his team.

He spoke at a news conference after the Group B match, played at the Corinthians Arena Stadium, Sao Paulo.

Siasia said that the team failed to contain the rampaging South American team.

“The two players that tormented the Dream Team, were Teofile, spotting the 10 jersey and Miguel Borja, number 9,’’ the coach added.

“Mistakes have been made. We shall correct all these before the start of the quarter finals matches, where mistakes could prove costly.

“At that level, any team that wavers will be on their way back home. Our target is still the Olympic Gold. We can do it.

“My team realises that, and we have to work had to attain our collective aspiration,’’ he said.

Captain of the team, John Mikel Obi, pleaded with fans at home and abroad to bear with the team, that the defeat by Colombia was not the end of the road.

“We are professionals. We made our mistakes. We shall take time to effect corrections and ensure that we keep our hopes alive.

“We are here for business and we shall ensure we successfully complete our assignment,’’ he re-assured.

On problems that faced the team, he said: “we have put everything behind us. We are working as a team.

“What is important is that there is no human that does not face challenges and we have had ours, we are professionals and we are forging ahead.’’

Read More:

http://guardian.ng/sport/why-we-lost-to-colombia-siasia/

Cocaine Found in Bananas… Spain Detains Traffickers

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Spanish police said Wednesday they had arrested nine people, including one of the country’s biggest drug smugglers, after finding cocaine hidden among a shipment of bananas from Colombia.

The authorities said they opened their investigation after police with sniffer dogs uncovered 54 kilos (120 pounds) of high quality cocaine hidden inside boxes of bananas as they were being unloaded at the port of Marin in the northwestern region of Galicia.

Officers arrested six people who came to pick up the cocaine as well as three others in the southern town of Dilar who were allegedly part of the ring that organised the shipment, a statement said.

The detainees included the leader of the drug smuggling ring, identified only as Antonio Manuel B.I., a Spanish national described by police as “one of Spain’s top drug dealers”.

Police said the suspect had been on the run since being sentenced to 17 years in jail in 2006 for drug smuggling and other crimes.

He was detained in Spain in 2001 on suspicion of being part of a ring trying to smuggle more than 1,000 kilos of cocaine out of Colombia.

Read More: http://news.yahoo.com