Lightning bolt kills 11 in remote Colombian village. Source: ITN
A bolt of lightning has killed 11 members of a Colombian indigenous group and injured 19 others during a spiritual ceremony in an isolated mountain region.
The lightning struck the ceremonial hut where spiritual leaders of the Wiwa community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta were holding a meeting on Sunday night. The building, made of adobe walls and thatched roof, burnt to the ground, according to local officials.
The wounded, many with first and second degree burns, were airlifted by army helicopter to receive treatment at hospitals in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta.
Rafael Mojica, a Wiwa leader who survived the accident, said that according to the group’s world view, when lightning strikes the spirits are indicating that some harm that has been done to the Earth must be repaired.
“When lightning strikes in the woods the mamos [shamans] get together to decide what type of offering should be made,” Mojica told El Tiempo newspaper.
Between midnight on Sunday and 4am on Monday lightning struck more than 2,900 times – about 10 times per minute – in the Sierra Nevada, according to monitors.
With about 13,000 members, the Wiwa community has been hit particularly hard by forced displacement, murders and disappearances linked to Colombia’s internal armed conflict. In 2009 it was listed by the constitutional court among 36 endangered indigenous groups in the country.
The National Indigenous Organisation, ONIC, said the group was concerned about the future of the Wiwa because most of those who died were men, which leaves their families vulnerable.
Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, tweeted: “Our solidarity is with the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta indigenous community.”