Universidad Nacional de Colombia is preparing a proposal to face the tragic rainy season

Experts affirm that Colombians have not faced an emergency of this type for 70 years. Conscious of this situation, the University proposes the creation of an elite group that studies and provides solutions to the events caused by the heavy rain from a technical perspective.

The proposal is supported by the experience on these topics the Civil Engineer and the Agricultural Engineer Departments have, along with other groups from other faculties that will join this group in areas such as economics and humanities.

"We will write an official release to the Presidency of the Republic and other institutions such as the National Planning and the Ministry of Transportation, among others, expressing our support and making available more than 40 years of successful experiences the University has on these topics," asserted Carol Murillo, director of the Civil Engineering Department at Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

For his part, Luis Alejandro Camacho, coordinator of the Lab for Hydraulic Trials of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, affirms that the University has carried out several studies related to the amounts of water and floods.

Camacho mentioned some events such as the Environmental Restoration of the Channel of the Dike in 2007, in which the alternatives for the reduction of the caudal were evaluated to avoid the entrance of debris to the Bay of Cartagena, as well as the design of at least 30 flooding control works of Magdalena River in different points.

Not long ago, the Faculty of Engineering performed a study on the quality of Bogota river"s water, which monitored this resource from the municipality of Villapinzón to Girardot (Cundinamarca), in order to establish the current quality conditions of this liquid from the upper basin to the lower basin.

The University also proposes taking advantage of this historic opportunity of rains to gather all the possible information and clarify the maps of the threatened zones; in addition, other objectives are analyzing the vulnerability of some civil structures and examining the proposals of the ministries and governmental institutions in order to support them from the technical point of view.

Currently, figures indicate that the rainy season in the country has let two million of victims.