Jacob, the dog looking for his family after the gigantic avalanche in Alausí

Jacob is the name of a dog that was moved by his desperation when trying to dig up a gigantic landslide that on Sunday night devastated a neighborhood in the city of Alausí, in the center of the Andes of Ecuadorwith the instinct to find his family buried by the landslide.

The farmer was saved from being swallowed by the landslide, but part of his human family did not make it, so he does not leave the place. He sniffs and digs, sobs and waits for someone to return his own.

Vicky Lalón is Daniel’s girlfriend, the intermediate of the Ruiz-Morocho family, whom Jacob is desperately looking for, but she and her boyfriend were saved because moments before the tragedy they left his house to go to his to pick up clothes

She says that Jacob was the biggest of three dogs they had and that they also enjoyed the company of three cats. The largest of the pets was the one that always accompanied the family outings, attentive to orders and ready to protect them.

More than playful, attentive and shrewd. Now “he smells his house and starts digging, that’s why the rescuers dug in the place, but they couldn’t find anything, because apparently machinery is needed to dislodge the amount of earth” that fell on the houses of the neighborhood, Lalón told EFE.

Jacob “He walks around, gets a little distracted but comes back… He’s looking for his home”like many other people who cry out for more help to try to rescue the victims. ‘They could be alive’Vicky said hopefully.

Neither “It is known for certain how many people were in their homes at the time of the landslide, since the population knew about the cracks in the mountain and the authorities had already been notified” last December, recalled Lalón.

He even pointed out that about ten days ago the inhabitants of this small town held a protest march to demand that the authorities take “letters in the matter”.

For this reason, Lalón said he believed that some people did evacuate in time and that many other families in the neighborhood collected belongings to leave the area. “out of fear, but not because the authorities have warned.”

From her boyfriend’s family “five left” with the landslide “only two were saved”one of them her boyfriend who went with her for clothes to evacuate the place.

“Families, trucks, vans, homes left” and that is why machinery is required to try to save as many as possible, he repeated with hope.

The arrival of help is urgent, because another neighboring neighborhood, San Cristóbal, could suffer the same fate if another of the slopes fell off.

And it is that hope is what motivates the community of Alausí, who saw how they rescued a person and even a puppy from the rubble who, like Jacob, hopes to see his family.

According to initial official reports, at least 16 people have died, another sixteen have been injured, half a thousand affected, 22 homeless and 163 homes impacted by the avalanche.

Source: EFE