On December 15, 1999, in La Guaira, one of the worst natural disasters in the country occurred due to the unusual rains that fell in Venezuela. The “Vargas Landslide”(current state of La Guaira). 30,000 dead (in the Guinness Book of Records as the highest number of victims due to a landslide). That same day, and despite the warning of some experts in the field who recommended suspending the electoral process called by the CNE, the Constitutional Referendum was held on Wednesday to approve the new Constitution drafted by the Constituent Assembly of that time.

To this day, the State La Guaira remains vulnerable and without reliable tools that can predict a repeat.

It was a tragedy caused by the ineptitude of the government in power (Chavez). If they had paid due attention when they gave the first warnings, many lives would have been saved.

Heavy rainfall left more than 1,814 mm of water in the Vargas state in the first two weeks of December, causing soil saturation due to the amount of water. This in turn caused the flow of water to descend slopes of more than 30 degrees, bringing with it landslides of land, rocks, trees and the topsoil of the mountains.

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