The vice-president of the Congress of the Republic, Lady Camones, criticized the fact that President Pedro Castillo maintains his intention to attend Parliament to give a message, instead of going to the scene of the emergency in Pataz, located in the La Libertad region, where 12 persons are reported missing, several trapped and some 40 houses buried after the collapse of a hill.
He gave these statements in an interview with Exitosa, where he was asked whether the president should appear in Congress or in the disaster area. According to the legislator of the Alliance for Progress, Castillo Terrores should suspend or postpone her speech in plenary, agreed for today at 5 p.m. and thus immediately go to Pataz to help the affected families.
“(Should Pedro Castillo be in Congress or La Libertad?) He should definitely be in La Libertad, it's up to him to be there. A human life is not going to be worth less than a speech (the one Castillo will give today). We have a lot of time to listen to it, we could rethink the date, but here the president's presence should be there, where there are families affected and who require the highest authority in the area to be there,” he said.
After the collapse in Pataz, President Castillo spoke out through his social networks to announce that the Executive will immediately attend to the needs of this population and that members of the cabinet have already been arranged to assess the damage that has occurred.
“I have arranged for the head of Indeci and the Minister of Defense to go to the area affected by the landslide in the province of Pataz, in the La Libertad region. We will support the affected families and will articulate various actions with local authorities,” he wrote on Twitter.
In turn and following the president's instructions, the Minister of Defense, José Luis Gavidia, announced that he is going to the emergency zone accompanied by a rapid response team from the National Institute of Civil Defense (Indeci).
“We will provide all the necessary help to the affected families,” he said, specifying that the emergency occurred in the town of Retamas.
In addition, the holder of the Defense portfolio detailed that an Army battalion that is moving overland from Huamachuco to the Pataz area to assist in the rescue tasks, which should be arriving around 3 in the afternoon.
“First we are going to save lives and then we will dedicate ourselves to looking at the causes of this collapse. At the moment we are dedicated to bringing in the largest number of rescuers and doctors to save the greatest number of lives,” said Gavidia.
THREE MINORS AMONG THE MISSING
The Commissioner of Retamas, NPP Lieutenant Carlos Albero Valderrama, revealed that among the seven disappeared there are 3 minors. At the moment this is an unofficial figure provided by relatives whose homes have been buried.
Valderrama indicated that at the moment, intensive work is being done to rescue more people, with the support of Civil Defense personnel and the Horizonte mining company, who, as soon as they were aware of the emergency, provided machinery to help the emergency.
These brigades are now working to open sinkholes and move the rubble with adequate but insufficient tools, given the magnitude of the collapse, in order to reach where people are likely to be buried.
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