“It hurts us deeply that minors have lost their lives”: Iván Duque in front of school road accident

President Iván Duque shared a message regarding the recent accident that happened in the rural area of the municipality of San Andrés, Santander. A bus that provided the school route service rolled about 250 meters into the abyss with dozens of children on board.

The accident occurred while the route crossed the Alto de San Pedreo, when the driver lost control due to unknown circumstances. The bus was attended by 25 children and five adults, of whom six minors were found dead, whose identity and age have not yet been disclosed and 17 more were injured.

The governor of the Santander department, Mauricio Aguilar Hurtado, confirmed the news through his Twitter account. “Unfortunately, I have to confirm a school bus accident on the Laguna de Ortices-San Andrés highway, where 6 minors died and there are more than 15 injured, among children and adults. I immediately assume the attention of this tragedy together with my work team,” said the official.

For his part, President Iván Duque wrote the following on his Twitter account: “It hurts us deeply that minors lost their lives after the accident that suffered a school route in the municipality of San Andrés, Santander.” In turn, he assured that the authorities are already carrying out investigations into this fact “which mourns the country” and sent “all solidarity to the families of the victims”.

The affected students belong to the La Laguna de Ortices Institute. Some time after the events occurred, the authorities and relief agencies arrived to transfer the wounded. In fact, given the seriousness of the accident, the municipality's fire commander, Andrés Orduz, asked for even a helicopter to transfer the four most seriously injured to health centers located in Bucaramanga and 11 other municipalities in Malaga.

For the time being, the school bus is still on the track and, according to the authorities, it will only be removed after a preliminary investigation into the reasons for the accident.

Consequences of rains in Santander

In Santander, the Official Volunteer Fire Department of Floridablanca warned about the official start of the rainy season for 2022 in this region. On the first day, both Bucaramanga and the metropolitan area recorded floods that left several municipalities incommunicado due to the high level of rivers and the overflow of some of them.

In addition to this, several citizens reported floods that ended up directly affecting their homes, as the water covered several centimeters of them; mainly in the municipality of Girón, Malaga and San Gil.

The road between Bucaramanga and San Gil presents a single lane passage at this time, as the rainfall the night before caused a great fall of trees and rocks on this national road. In the vicinity of the Curos sector, the authorities reported the total closure of the road in the evening hours; however, machinery arrived after this. The Traffic Police and Firefighters of the municipality of Piedecuesta, after the arduous operations carried out, were able to enable the passage to a single lane in this area of the province of García Rovira.

In turn, the authorities enabled the passage on the Acapulco highway, because the flooding of the La Ruitoca stream caused the temporary closure of the road, taking into account that water covered part of this artery. The Floridablanca firefighters arrived at the scene to verify the behavior of this watershed and, likewise, all the rivers that flow in the vicinity of the motorway between Floridablanca and Piedecuesta. For the time being, the authorities decreed the orange alert throughout the department in the face of the upcoming rains.

KEEP READING: