More than half of the total, or about $2.3 million USD, will fund the construction of a new administrative center for Mocoa. Rivera said the plan will give the capital a modern building that will help citizens spend less time waiting for officials to complete various procedures and document processing.

Rivera added that this site will also be used to further coordinate and administer the ongoing reconstruction efforts in Mocoa to rebuild from the disaster.

Another $1 million USD will go toward video surveillance as part of Colombia’s wider “Live Safe, Live in Peace” program. The monitoring is an attempt to improve public safety and alleviate the fears that some residents have in the capital, said Rivera in a statement.

Additionally, around $300,000 USD will be used to create a “Citizen Integration Center” (CIC) in neighborhood of José Homero that will be the staging ground for the implementation of various peace process protocols and reintegration efforts.

The disaster recovery and rebuilding plans in Mocoa are close to home for Rivera, a Putumayo native who was appointed to the head of the ministry last month following the resignation of Juan Fernando Cristo. The investments announced today, said Rivera, will help the community act “with integrity and opportunity in the reconstruction of Mocoa.”

Photo: Minister of the Interior Guillermo Rivera Flórez announces new investments for Mocoa. (Credit: MinInterior)

Authorities said that storms last night may have dumped some five inches of rain that caused multiple rivers — the Mocoa, Mulato, and Sanguyaco — to swell, with some breaking their banks to trigger mudslides and an “avalanche” of water that demolished full neighborhoods and affected many other sections of the municipality of Mocoa.

The death toll has been rising throughout the day, with some officials fearing it may still grow further as the search for survivors continues. Some 200 people remained missing early in the evening of April 1, according to the Colombian military. At least 400 others have been injured.

The primary local hospital, according to a BBC report, is struggling to manage the situation. At least 21 survivors in critical condition were airlifted to Neiva, the capital of the department Huila located about 320 kilometers to the northeast by ground. Parts of Putumayo have lost electricity, and Mocoa was left without water service, according to the office of the president.

“There were 17 affected neighborhoods,” Mocoa Mayor José Castro told Colombian magazine La Semana. “Some disappeared completely, like San Miguel, part of Laureles, San Fernando, and Progreso, where I live. The house was completely devastated.”

Military forces in Colombia help one resident of Mocoa evacuate as floodwaters inundate this community in Putumayo. (Credit: Fuerzas Militares de Colombia)

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has issued a state of emergency and said that about 10 days worth of rain fell last night to “produce the avalanche” of water that overran the riverbanks. The president arrived in Mocoa today to “guarantee attention to the victims of this tragedy,” he said.

Santos also said this morning that Colombia’s National Unit for the Management of Disaster Risk (UNGRD) is overseeing disaster response in Mocoa. As part of the country’s official National Risk Management System response, the Colombian military is on the ground and members of the armed forces have been seen carrying vulnerable citizens away from danger while working to preserve life and aid the injured. The emergency unit of the National Police and a specialized aerial unit of the army have also been sent to the scene of the tragedy.

The Colombian Red Cross this morning mobilized a force of at least 22 people to join public officials on the ground in Mocoa. The United Nations has offered “to provide all the support that the Colombian authorities deem necessary.” Colombia’s UNGRD, which is led by Carlos Iván Márquez, immediately began gathering supplies to send humanitarian aid to those affected by the catastrophe, and the National Police made at least 14 flights into the area with supplies.

By early afternoon, according to the UNGRD, more than 900 personnel from various agencies were working on search and rescue, caring for the wounded, verifying the location of survivors, delivering emergency aid, and other necessary tasks. That number rose to more than 1,100 later in the day, and the president said that at least four helicopters and five planes have also been present to assist officials. Some 50 tanker trucks were brought in by early afternoon as well to help in the ongoing effort to provide potable water to the community.

“My heart — our heart, the heart of all Colombians — is with the victims of this tragedy,” said Santos while addressing the media in Mocoa. He added that, “We continue with the search and rescue of people — we are with the victims, with the families affected.”

Humanitarian aid is being coordinated for the victims of the tragedy in Mocoa. (Credit: UNGRD)

The president also told the press that the government is working on plans to manage the ongoing fallout of a catastrophe that will require a long recovery.

“We are going to make a plan of action with Dr. Carlos Iván Márquez, with the government, and all the institutions that are here,” added the president. “We are going to start the whole process of humanitarian aid, we are of course going to take care of the wounded, we will start the funeral process for the deceased, and we will also begin to re-establish the services that were disrupted.”

In the afternoon, UNGRD began accepting monetary donations from those who want to help the victims. Those wishing to contribute can send funds directly to the agency’s Banco Davivienda savings account (cuenta de ahorros) #021666888.

#TodosConMocoa Con tus aportes entregaremos Asistencia Humanitaria de Emergencia a los damnificados de Mocoa. pic.twitter.com/tZglCQ7T4H

— UNGRD🇨🇴 (@UNGRD) April 1, 2017

Many of Colombia’s other top public officials have also traveled to Mocoa to assist with the tragedy, including: Luis Carlos Villegas, minister of defense; Alejandro Gaviria Uribe, minister of health and social protection; Luis Gilberto Murillo, minister of environment and sustainable development; General Juan Pablo Rodríguez, top commander of the military; and Jorge Hernando Nieto, director of the National Police.

This article has been updated throughout the day as more information has surfaced.

Photo Credit: Presidencia de la República

Unified Messaging Systems (UMS) is one company that is bringing new technology to the task. The Oslo, Norway-based firm helps first responders and auhtorities communicate better with one another and the general public during an emergency.

Photo: Anand Anupam of Unified Messaging Systems gives a presentation on his companies services during Andicom 2016 in Cartagena. (Credit: Loren Moss)

To better understand how the systems work and are being used in Colombia, Loren Moss, executive editor of Finance Colombia, recently sat down with Leon Hausman and Anand Anupam of UMS. They discussed their operations, their experience at Andicom 2016, and their outlook on the Colombian market.

Finance Colombia: What is Unified Messaging Systems and what leads you to come to conferences in Colombia?

Leon Hausman: UMS is a Norwegian company founded in 1997. From our beginnings we have been dedicated to the development and implementation of critical messaging solutions and national alert systems. Nowadays we are leaders in the world market in this kind of industry.

At Andicom, we had the honor of presenting the different technologies that are available nowadays on the market for attention to disasters. We discussed how these technologies are integrated into the different channels of communication and existing infrastructure in the country to communicate notifications of emergency alert messages to certain segments of the population. They also go out to groups of authorities so as to be able to attend to a disaster and minimize any kind of risk and safeguard the greatest number of lives in the face of any eventuality.

Finance Colombia: Fascinating. And how does the communication work?

Leon Hausman: Generally, the area of attention to disasters has been handled by radios, handsets, LBS, and the authorities. In many countries, this all works with handsets, walkie-talkies, and radios.

Finance Colombia: What challenges do you face in the fascinating digital world where the radios handle data? They are connected to internet instead of an antenna?

Anand Anupam: Right, so the radio technology that you are talking about is essentially used for first responder communication. For example, within the police force, among themselves. So there are two kinds of technologies that you’re talking about. One is public warning, which is to people, to citizens. Everyone doesn’t have a radio phone, right?

The other is the communication between first responders. And what is happening across the world now is you have the same systems communicating to radio channels and to the walkie-talkies. You have tetra radios now, so you have the same system communicating to tetra radios as well as to the public communications channels on phones and whatnot.

In fact, today in some of the European countries we work with technologies that allow you to have conference calling between a person with a radio on the ground, with a person who has a cellphone on the ground, and with the emergency operations center that is on a fixed-line phone. So you see more and more technologies converging these days, especially on the kind of use cases that we talked about.

Finance Colombia: Why Colombia? You guys obviously are global. What did you see in the Colombian market that made you decide to establish here? Are your operations here specific to Colombia, the Andean region, South America, and the Americas?

Anand Anupam: We’ve been working in the Latin American market for the last five years, across countries from Mexico and all the way to Argentina. The reason why we have a focus on Colombia is primarily because of the kind of engagements that we are having here, mostly with MinTIC — the ministry of communication — as well as the civil defense organizations.

We’ve been in discussions with them over the last couple of years around multiple technologies, our experiences, and use cases. And looking at the kinds of disasters in Colombia, I think systems like ours make a lot of sense.

Finance Colombia: In what kind of applications have you seen success? For example, In India we have seen there has been recent flooding. Here in Colombia, of course, we have floods and we have earthquakes. We don’t have tornadoes or hurricanes, but what use cases have you seen specifically where your system has been employed and you’ve been able to find success?

Anand Anupam: We have worked with systems and incidents from those as localized as something seen in a campus or an event in a particular community to events that have an impact on the beaches.

Earlier in the presentation we were talking about multi-hazard systems that are able to handle communication and incidents at the local level as well as the national level. So our systems work, for example, on tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, cyclones, as well as man-made disasters like bomb-blasts, terror attacks, large-scale demonstrations, or public accidents. So use cases include systems capable of handling all of these various catastrophes and disasters.

The analysis estimates that in Colombia, the annual combined GDP of Bogotá and Medellín together will grow to $255.34 billion dollars in the next decade, but 16.88% of this economic growth will remain at risk due to a combination of 18 natural and manmade factors.

Bogotá and Medellín’s growing importance in the ICT (Information, Communications, Technology) sector mean that their $1.19 billion USD exposure to cyber attack should not be overlooked.

Juan Carlos Realphe runs Lloyd’s Colombian operations.

A total of $15 billion dollars of GDP is at risk due to earthquake, and a market crash could expose another $14.5 billion dollars. Further exposures include $3.79 billion USD from a disease epidemic, $2.66 billion from hypothetical terrorist attacks, or $2.58 billion due to regional volcanic eruptions. Bogotá and Medellín’s growing importance in the ICT (Information, Communications, Technology) sector mean that their $1.19 billion USD exposure to cyber attack should not be overlooked.

“The Lloyd’s City Risk Index shows that manmade risks like cyber attacks or market collapse are growing worldwide as they are in Colombia, where these exposures put $20 billion dollars at risk,” said Lloyd’s Colombia representative Juan Carlos Realphe. “However, we cannot ignore the threat of natural disasters, particularly earthquakes. As the nature of the risk changes, insurers must continue to innovate in order to ensure that their products continue to adapt in evolving risk scenarios, to continue offering customers the protection that they need, and contribute to the international community adapting and overcoming adversity.”

Updated every two years, Lloyd’s City Risk Index 2015-2025 is a product of a research partnership between Lloyd’s and the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School to increase awareness of risks across the globe, and to encourage governments and companies to improve their responsiveness, risk management strategy, and protect their inhabitants and key infrastructure.

The study also highlights man made risks such as cyber attacks, commodity price fluctuations, and terrorism that in many cases pose more of a threat than traditional natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and droughts.

Globally, the index identifies three important emerging trends in the global risk landscape:

1. Emerging economies will shoulder two-thirds of risk related financial losses as a result of their accelerating economic growth, with their cities often highly exposed to single natural catastrophes.
2. Manmade risks such as market crash, power outages and nuclear accidents are becoming increasingly significant, associated with almost half the total GDP at risk. A market crash is the greatest economic vulnerability – representing nearly a quarter of all cities’ potential losses.
3. New or emerging risks, such as cyber attack, are also increasingly significant. Together, they account for more than a third of the total GDP at risk with just four – cyber attack, human pandemic, plant epidemic and solar storm – representing more than a fifth of the total GDP at risk.

The findings show the need for governments and businesses to work together to build more resilient infrastructure and institutions. How quickly a city recovers after a catastrophe is a key component of the total risk, and the impact of events is mitigated by rapid access to capital to help restore the economy.

“Insurers, governments, businesses and communities need to think about how they can improve the resilience of infrastructure and institutions. Insurance is part of the solution,” said Lloyd’s CEO Inga Beale. “Insurers must continue to innovate; ensure their products are relevant in this rapidly changing risk landscape, offer customers the protection they need and, as a result, contribute to a more resilient international community.”

What is GDP at Risk?

When a catastrophic event, such as an earthquake, a pandemic or a financial crisis, hits a city, it reduces its economic output. The loss of economic output, relative to the economic output that would have been expected, is the GDP at risk from an event. Lloyd’s City Risk Index 2015-2025 takes the first five years of lost economic output as the standard measure of GDP at risk from an event.
Cities are at risk from multiple threats. Lloyd’s City Risk Index considers 18 of them: cyber-attack, drought, earthquake, flood, freeze, heat wave, pandemic, market crash, nuclear accident, oil price shock, plant epidemic, power outage, solar storm, sovereign default, terrorism, tsunami, volcano and windstorm.

“This analysis for the Lloyd’s City Risk Index is the result of six years of research into catastrophic shocks on complex systems carried out at the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies. It combines a detailed understanding of 18 different economic threats to the world’s most important cities. The measure “GDP@Risk” makes it possible to combine and compare a very wide range of threats, including those that are disruptive and costly, such as market collapse, in addition to destructive and deadly natural catastrophes,” said Professor Daniel Ralph, Academic Director of Cambridge Center for Risk Studies.

Lloyd’s estimates that the likelihood of each city being affected by different magnitudes of events between 2015 and 2025. These likelihoods vary from city to city depending on their locations and risk characteristics, but all of these events are rare and the probability of a city being impacted by any particular event scenario in the ten year period may be only a few percent.

They then estimate the GDP at risk from each event, were it to occur, for each city. How quickly a city recovers after a catastrophe is a key component of the total risk. The impact of events is mitigated by rapid access to capital to help restore the economy afterwards.

Summing all the expected losses from the different threats and their representative scenarios that could occur in each of the years from 2015 to 2025 gives the total GDP at risk for the city from all threats. This is a probability-weighted expected loss to the economy of that city from all threats.