3 children killed in 2 Tijuana mudslides
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050112-9...
By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 12, 2005
TIJUANA ? Slopes weakened by days of rain gave way yesterday morning, demolishing houses and killing three children, including a boy who was asleep in
his bedroom.
The children died in two separate mudslides in a southern section of Tijuana known as San Antonio de los Buenos.
Elsewhere in the city, 140 houses were damaged by flood waters and mud, and officials said 2,500 people had been evacuated.
Juan Antonio Aguirre Andrade, 5, was killed as he slept. In the other fatal incident, sisters Martha Angelica Tapia, 8, and Maria del Carmen Tapia,
13, were awake in their bedroom about 9 a.m. when their home was crushed.
"The girls had already woken up and everything was fine, then all of a sudden a wall fell down and it took just a moment," said Juana Tapia, the
girls' mother.
Her husband, Rene, was making funeral arrangements last night for the girls, the couple's only children. Juana Tapia was staying with acquaintances.
The family's wooden house, which they had built themselves, was destroyed. Residents of the neighborhood are typically newcomers, though the Tapias
had lived there for nine years.
Juana Tapia said the last thing she heard from the girls was Maria saying that the two sisters were going to watch television. The parents were in a
different part of the house and were not injured.
"My husband was looking for them in the dirt and then we got our neighbors trying to find them in the dirt, too, but we couldn't find them," she said.
Medics and other rescue workers arrived about an hour later and pulled out the bodies.
"They were very active and energetic and studious," Juana Tapia said of her daughters. "I haven't been able to accept this."
She and her husband support themselves by sifting through the Tijuana dump for recyclable material to sell. Their house was only a few miles from the
dump.
Little information was available about the mudslide that killed the boy, or about his family. He lived in the same area of the city as the girls.
"Unfortunately, due to the shifting of the wet earth, they ended up being buried like this," said Humberto Garcia Gomez, director of the city's civil
protection department.
Tijuana had been bracing for serious problems from the series of storms that have pummeled the region. Jorge Aztiazaran Orci, who oversees the city's
human development agency, mourned the deaths of the children.
"These were people who hadn't even had a chance to grow up yet," he said. "It is very sad."
City officials said they were working with the families to provide them with psychological assistance and to help with funeral arrangements.
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
