Effects of the Venezuelan Floods of December 1999
Global Warming may increase the frequency of of severe weather events leading to more flash floods and more landslides. 1		Venezuela's development reduced by cost of damage and by cost of reconstruction. 2
Increasing awareness of the need to improve land use planning to control developments. 3		Government mobilised navy and air force to help rescue and evacuations. 4
Sewers, water supplies disrupted. Major risk of outbreak of epidemic diseases like cholera. 5		Rates of rural - urban migration slowed and least temporarily. 6
Aid was mobilised from foreign governments and international charitable agencies like the Red Cross. 7		In the event of delayed formal reconstruction schemes people acted and rebuilt their own homes in unsafe locations. 8
Plans to encourage settlers to move to Guri town near an HEP scheme being built in Bolivar state. 9		Death toll as many as 30,000 with thousands of bodies missing. 10
University buildings swamped - courses disrupted. 11		Huge numbers of families displaced, traumatised and made homeless. 12
Feelings of concern, support and solidarity - locally, nationally and internationally. 13		Rising wage rates and regular employment for those in the construction trade. 14
Improved planning controls; legislation to control future developments. 15		Tourism devastated in the coastal plain and marinas. 16
Migrants continue to arrive in shanty towns from rural areas and continue to deforest slopes. 17		Sense of community strengthened with some offering shelter and lodgings to the homeless. 18
Ports disrupted with containers washed away and with harbour entrances blocked with debris 19		Many people suffered traumas losing relatives, home and employment in one fell swoop. 20
Government increases social security payments to poorest in society and boosts minimum wage. Oil revenues help to fund these payments 21		Lessons were learnt about the dangers of canyons and alluvial fans as settlement sites. Rebuilding was prevented. 22
Many reconstruction and protection schemes were never instigated - disaster could strike again. 23		Plans were made to canalise and widen dangerous river channels. 24
Roads blocked and so emergency supplies were delayed 25		Panic buying and a rise in price of basic commodities. 26
Recovery in marinas and coastal tourism with affluent visitors from Caracas. 27
		PN GeogOnline