1994 Páez River earthquake

The Paez river disaster^[1] was caused by a rather superficial earthquake (with a 10 km deep epicentre, 6.4 on the Richter scale) and subsequent mudslide that destroyed the small town of Paez, located on the foothills of the Central Cordillera of the Andes in Cauca Department in South-western Colombia, which took place on June 6, 1994^[2]. It was estimated that killed 1,100 people, mostly from the Paez ethnia were killed in some 15 settlements on the Paez River basin, Cauca and Huila Departments of which the homonymous town of Paez suffered 50% of the death toll.^[3][4] In response to the disaster, the government created the Nasa Kiwe Corporation to bring relief to the area, and begin the reconstruction of the affected areas.

References and notes

1. ^ . The correct spelling and accent of the name in Spanish is paez (acute sound, accentuated on the e) and refers to the people that inhabit the area since pre-Columbus times. It is often confused with Páez, a Spanish last name, (grave sound, accentuated on the a). This mistake can be seen in all references to the place, river, people and language in this Wikipedia; it is also seen often in Internet texts in Spanish, related to the events here described. The word is mis-written even in the official website of the government corporation created in 1994 to deal with the reconstruction of the infrastructure and manage the public and charitable funds to it allocated.
2. ^ . Sismo del 6 de junio de 1994 El sismo de Paez de 1994. "(…)A causa del sismo se registraron 20 personas muertas y algunos heridos, cifra nada comparable con la cantidad de víctimas que dejaron las avalanchas, calculada en más de 300 muertos y 500 desaparecidos."
3. ^ . Detailed descriptions and photographs of the events, the outcomes, the handling of the emergency and later developments and social consecquences can be seen in Nasa kive the government corporation for the reconstruction of the Paez river basin.
4. ^ . A detailed report with complementary information about this particular disaster and several others that took place around the same time in the Andean countries can be obtained in a special issue of the journal Desastres y Sociedad, publishebd by La Red de Estudios Sociales en Prevención de Desastres en América Latina in 1995.