Over 250 are dead and hundreds are still missing in the southern village of Mocoa.
Dozens of children are among those killed in devastating mudslides in south-west Colombia, according to President Juan Manuel Santos. Search and rescue teams also combed the rubble for signs of life. I am at God's mercy. "To see how some people screamed, and others cried, ran, tried to flee in cars, on motorcycles, and how they were trapped in the mud. It's all too, too hard", she said.
Marta Ceballos, a 44-year-old street vendor, said she lost everything, but is thankful her family is alive.
Governor Sorrel Aroca of the Putumayo department described the catastrophe as "an unprecedented tragedy", saying that "hundreds of families have not yet been found and whole neighborhoods missing".
The director of the country's National Disaster Risk Management Unit told the AFP that 5 inches of rain fell in the region on Friday night, which would normally account for 30 percent of the region's monthly rainfall.
The mudslides Friday followed days of torrential rains.
He blamed climate change for triggering the avalanche, saying that the accumulated rainfall in one night was nearly half the amount Mocoa normally receives in the entire month of March.
Colombia's Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez says his office has launched an investigation to ensure local and national authorities fulfilled their responsibility in taking the necessary corrective and preventative actions in the community affected by a deadly avalanche of water and mud. The government has sent more than a thousand soldiers and police to assist in the rescue operation.
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Families and rescuers are continuing to search through the debris.There is no drinking water or electricity in the area.
He said the torrent of water and debris also knocked out power in half of the province of Putumayo, where Mocoa is located, and destroyed the area's fresh water network, creating unsafe and unsanitary conditions. "It is as if we remove the protection for avoiding landslides", said Adriana Soto, a Colombian conservationist and former environment minister.
"We are just starting to realise what has hit us".
Landslides have struck the region several times in recent months.
"Here we are facing a disaster caused by nature, by climate change", Santos said earlier.
"Under the mud", Granados said, "I am sure there are many more".
Some of the victims were believed to be members of a group harvesting ginger crops in fields around the village, he said.
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