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Colombia: Urabá, Carepa river 17 images Created 18 Oct 2017

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  • Rainfall in Colombia has become unpredictable, affecting planting and harvesting patterns. Sometimes the rain doesn't come for months, and then there are several days of relentless heavy downpour, causing floods and erosion.
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_006.jpg
  • Men dig sand by hand on the Carepa River, Urabá. Horse-drawn carts and lorries are loaded with river sand and sold for local building work. These small artisanal operations are incomparable to the industrial removal of sand up-river where 200 lorry-loads are removed daily to be used on large infrastructure projects like highways. The large-scale mining of sand changes the speed and course of the river, creating environmental problems and danger for people who live near the river as it changes course. Near Carepa city, the river has changed course by 100m in recent years, taking houses with it. Currently it is just a few metres from housing and moving closer daily.
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_093.jpg
  • Men dig sand by hand on the Carepa River, Urabá. Horse-drawn carts and lorries are loaded with river sand and sold for local building work. These small artisanal operations are incomparable to the industrial removal of sand up-river where 200 lorry-loads are removed daily to be used on large infrastructure projects like highways. The large-scale mining of sand changes the speed and course of the river, creating environmental problems and danger for people who live near the river as it changes course. Near Carepa city, the river has changed course by 100m in recent years, taking houses with it. Currently it is just a few metres from housing and moving closer daily.
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_115.jpg
  • Men dig sand by hand on the Carepa River, Urabá. Horse-drawn carts and lorries are loaded with river sand and sold for local building work. These small artisanal operations are incomparable to the industrial removal of sand up-river where 200 lorry-loads are removed daily to be used on large infrastructure projects like highways. The large-scale mining of sand changes the speed and course of the river, creating environmental problems and danger for people who live near the river as it changes course. Near Carepa city, the river has changed course by 100m in recent years, taking houses with it. Currently it is just a few metres from housing and moving closer daily.
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_118.jpg
  • At El Playón, on the edge of Carepa city, the river is changing course and moving closer to the housing every day. Political decisions to sell the river to a commercial sand mining operation have resulted in massive river erosion that is affecting the security of Carepa city dwellers. Every night of rainfall more erosion of the river bank happens and more trees are washed away.
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_134.jpg
  • Men dig sand by hand on the Carepa River, Urabá. Horse-drawn carts and lorries are loaded with river sand and sold for local building work. These small artisanal operations are incomparable to the industrial removal of sand up-river where 200 lorry-loads are removed daily to be used on large infrastructure projects like highways. The large-scale mining of sand changes the speed and course of the river, creating environmental problems and danger for people who live near the river as it changes course. Near Carepa city, the river has changed course by 100m in recent years, taking houses with it. Currently it is just a few metres from housing and moving closer daily.
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_197.jpg
  • Isnae Arroyo runs her own beauty salon at home, here Julie Alvarez is having her hair plaited. The house is barely five metres from the edge of the riverbank, about ten metres high. At night, Isnae says "we sleep with fear, we wake up in a panic sometimes and grab the children to get out. When a big chunk of the riverbank is washed away is makes a terrible noise, it's scary".
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_239.jpg
  • Isnae Arroyo runs her own beauty salon at home, here Julie Alvarez is having her hair plaited. The house is barely five metres from the edge of the riverbank, about ten metres high. At night, Isnae says "we sleep with fear, we wake up in a panic sometimes and grab the children to get out. When a big chunk of the riverbank is washed away is makes a terrible noise, it's scary".
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_253.jpg
  • Rev Apoloniar Escobar, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia, lives in Carepa, Urabá. I’ve been working as a pastor for four years here. The issue of water is complicated. Sometimes there’s too much, sometimes not enough. We have water from pipes, but it’s not clean enough for human consumption, we’ve had health problems here. We’ve had people killed here, and thrown into the reservoir that the water comes from. Some people have bought filters, others buy purified water from the shops so they can drink. Some people have a well, some collected rainwater. <br />
<br />
This river is seriously deteriorating. When the water rises, with heavy rainfall, we have many houses here in high risk of flooding or being washed away. Some people have to leave their houses to save their lives, sometimes in the middle of night. Sometimes they lose their furniture, and we’ve helped them, as the church. When the river begins to grow, it’s hard for people to sleep at night, waiting to see if there’s a flood, or if the houses are going to be washed away. The people on the edge of the river, during the winter, they have problems. The river water is so dirty, that if people wash in it, afterwards they have to wash off the river water. In the summer, the water is low in the river and in the reservoir, so we have little water, it’s rationed, or sometimes the municipality has to take a tanker of water around to the houses.<br />
<br />
At the moment we’ve had three days without water, the rainwater has been so strong that it washed away part of the big pipe that brings the water to town, and it’s still so strong that the workers can’t fix it.<br />
<br />
The sand extraction is a major influence on the river. The regional government, of Antioquia, has sold the river to a company. The company is extracting around 180 lorryloads of sand every day, they have excavators and a fleet of dump trucks. Down river this has a huge effect, the river is speeding up, it is changing its course quickly, eroding
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_309.jpg
  • A man rides a horse across the Carepa river as the waters subside after a night of heavy rainfall.
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170909_337.jpg
  • Isnae Arroyo runs her own beauty salon at home. The house is barely five metres from the edge of the riverbank, about ten metres high. At night, she says "we sleep with fear, we wake up in a panic sometimes and grab the children to get out. When a big chunk of the riverbank is washed away is makes a terrible noise, it's scary".
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170910_367.jpg
  • The Carepa river has a huge rise and fall. With prolonged heavy rainfall the river washes over the top of the riverbank. The speed of the water, and its erosive power, is increased by sand mining upriver. A commercial sand mining operation takes out around 200 large lorryloads of sand daily and this increases the speed and changes the course of the river. In this area at the edge of Carepa city, known as El Playón, people survey the river, and the erosion from the previous night. Underground pipes have been exposed  and the edge of the river bank is now less than 10m from houses..
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170910_383.jpg
  • Fernando Alvarez Delgado lives in El Playón, Carepa. "We're already on the edge of the river, it gets closer every day. We're hoping we get relocated by the municipality, we've got nowhere else to go. We're all in the same trouble here, it's dangerous. We feel it rumble when big lumps of the riverbank are washed away".
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170910_407.jpg
  • Horses in El Playón. Horses are used for pulling carts to extract sand artisanally from the Carepa river. Industrial sand mining, with excavators and lorries are causing serious erosion of the river.
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170910_423.jpg
  • Fernando Alvarez Delgado lives in El Playón, Carepa. "We're already on the edge of the river, it gets closer every day. We're hoping we get relocated by the municipality, we've got nowhere else to go. We're all in the same trouble here, it's dangerous. We feel it rumble when big lumps of the riverbank are washed away".
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170910_427.jpg
  • Angie Mercado, 17, lives in El Playón, Carepa, Urabá, Colombia. She has a daughter - Nicole - of 7 months. El Playón is a highly vulnerable neighbourhood on the edge of the river that is subject to rapid erosion by the river, flooding and some houses are on the verge of collapse into the river.<br />
<br />
"When it rains hard the river rises, the water comes quickly. There’s no time to get up and get out when a big part of the river bank drops into the river in a storm. If you are there, it can take your house and everyone who is in it. We get scared at night, we can’t sleep, I’ve had to get up when the river is bad, and run out with my daughter, I had to run out when she was just born. It’s very scary. When the riverbank collapses it makes a big noise. There were two small collapses last night, it was really loud, and the river, it’s getting closer and closer. A big collapse will take houses." <br />
<br />
"At the same time the water supply from the municipality is broken, we don't get any water."
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170910_434.jpg
  • Angie Mercado, 17, lives in El Playón, Carepa, Urabá, Colombia. She has a daughter - Nicole - of 7 months. El Playón is a highly vulnerable neighbourhood on the edge of the river that is subject to rapid erosion by the river, flooding and some houses are on the verge of collapse into the river.<br />
<br />
"When it rains hard the river rises, the water comes quickly. There’s no time to get up and get out when a big part of the river bank drops into the river in a storm. If you are there, it can take your house and everyone who is in it. We get scared at night, we can’t sleep, I’ve had to get up when the river is bad, and run out with my daughter, I had to run out when she was just born. It’s very scary. When the riverbank collapses it makes a big noise. There were two small collapses last night, it was really loud, and the river, it’s getting closer and closer. A big collapse will take houses." <br />
<br />
"At the same time the water supply from the municipality is broken, we don't get any water."
    Colombia_Hawkey_water_20170910_468.jpg