The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, announced this Friday that he will declare a «natural disaster» in the country next week in order to «allocate the remaining economic resources of the annual budget to face emergencies immediately».
The president made the announcement during his visit to Bosconia, in the department of Cesar, located in the north of the country and where heavy floods have been registered as a result of the heavy rains caused by ‘La niña’, to which have been added alleged irregularities in the construction of a road, according to complaints reported by the Colombian newspaper ‘El Tiempo’.
Petro has stated that the official proclamation will take place on Monday at the National Risk Council and has emphasized that the environmental crisis affects thousands of people and that «undoubtedly» it is an emergency caused by human beings themselves.
Specifically, he highlighted the important coal production in the region. «Cesar lives a paradox that focuses on the climate crisis, I said it in my election campaign, here we suffer but also this region produces the chemicals that generate this pollution: coal,» he said.
