The res­cue effort con­tin­ues after a mud­slide and flood dis­as­ter but the loss of pow­er and com­mu­ni­ca­tions is mak­ing the oper­a­tion impos­si­ble after darkness.

The dis­as­ter hit overnight on March 31-April 1, leav­ing more than 230 dead and the town of Mocoa in south­west Colum­bia devastated.

Pres­i­dent of the Colom­bian Ama­teur Radio League LCRA, Rober­to Rey HK3CW said that radio ama­teurs from La Pla­ta and Garzón were crit­i­cal in sup­port­ing the res­cue operation.

He said: “Radio ama­teurs were crit­i­cal in sup­port­ing per­son­nel and res­cuers.” An emer­gency net­work on the 40 metre band (7.093–7.095 MHz) sup­ports the relief and recov­ery effort after heavy rain trig­gered severe flood­ing and mud­slides. Hams are exchang­ing infor­ma­tion between agencies.

The Colom­bian Hams are work­ing on VHF over the nation­al net­work of FRACOL (Colom­bian Ham Radio Fed­er­a­tion) and they are linked to ECHOLINK using FRA­COL’s conference.

The nation­al dis­as­ter agency has a cri­sis group, includ­ing mil­i­tary units, police and res­cue teams, look­ing for miss­ing peo­ple and remov­ing hun­dreds of tonnes of debris.

- Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.