The number of deaths from the gigantic avalanche that buried part of Alausí, a town in the Andes of Ecuador, on Sunday rose to 23 this Friday, while another 67 people remain missing.
The latest assessment of the disaster published by the Risk Management Secretariat (SGR) also raised the number of injured to 38.
According to this institution, the people affected by the disaster reached 850, and of them 175 who have been left homeless and who are temporarily housed in shelters set up in this municipality in the Andean province of Chimborazo.
Nearly sixty homes have been destroyed and around 170 have minor damage.
The rescue work involving firefighters and the military is carried out with the risk that a new landslide could occur again when some cracks are detected in the upper part of the mountain.
So far they have unearthed a dozen bodies buried by the landslide, but the exact number that may still be underneath is unknown, since some houses in the affected area had already been previously evacuated due to warnings that this phenomenon could occur.
The avalanche fell on Sunday night on the Casual sector, in the neighborhood called Nuevo Alausí, and covered an area of 24.3 hectares, including the municipal soccer stadium.
