Eight villages in northern Colombia have been under water for a year and a half, after a broken dam caused water from the Magdalena River to flood through houses and farmlands.
According to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, inhabitants of the villages in the northern Colombian department of Bolivar have spent the last 18 months surrounded by water and are about to face yet another relentless rainy season. Eight flooded villages await the harsh realities of winter under water, including pests, mosquitoes and snakes.
A year and a half ago a hole opened up in a handmade dam in the region which flooded 1,235 acres of orange groves and drowned 5,000 animals. According to local farmers the decimation of the orange crop has been almost total, with 80% of the produce rotting away.
The northern Colombian villages are extremely isolated and have received little assistance in the last 18 months. From Cartagena it takes eight hours to reach these communities and it is necessary to take a motorbike for the last part of the journey, due to most of the road being covered in water.
According to the report by El Tiempo, a mayor from one of the affected villages said, "here we are so far away and so forgotten that we can't even do a road block like they do in other places, because no one sees us and no one pays any attention to us."
Most farmers and families in the region have lost everything; their livelihoods are completely destroyed and they have little hope for the future.
The water has proven to be impossible to control, with millions of cubic feet of water escaping every day, completely preventing the villagers from beginning a reconstruction process.
