Furst Dog located the area where the victims were found.
After 55 hours of tireless search, yesterday morning, firefighters, police and rescuers recovered the bodies of the seven people who made up the Melara family. Salamanca was buried by an avalanche at her home located at kilometer 8 of the old road to Zacatecoluca, in the jurisdiction of Santo Tomás.
Last Wednesday morning, an avalanche of mud, stones and trees; buried the Melara Salamanca family home. There, María Isabel Salamanca and her husband, Francisco Javier Melara, died; and her children, Jennifer, 22; Karla, 25; Javier, 23; and the twins Nahúm and Josué, 18, surnamed Melara Salamanca.
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More than 40 people have worked since dawn on Wednesday in search of victims who were buried under tons of dirt, stones, trees and debris from the home.
The search teams had heavy machinery that was used to remove the large amount of mud and debris. The location of the bodies was possible thanks to the search for the Furst dog from the PNC Police Canine Unit, which alerted the volunteers on three occasions to the sector in which the bodies were buried.
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Following the alerts issued by Furst, rescuers focused search efforts on an area three meters wide by ten meters long.
“It has been a titanic task, it has been a task that has been deployed in a very dangerous situation, the place was difficult to access and also the issue of the rains did not come in the least to help the situation that was being experienced here and it was dangerous, ”said Mario Durán, minister of the interior.
The rescuers had to dig between five and six meters to recover the bodies of the seven members of the Melara Salamanca family.
EDH Photo / Lissette Lemus
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The bodies were very close to each other, which according to the authorities shows that they were together.
His relatives have said that at the time of the tragedy, the seven members of the Melara Martínez family were in full prayer.
The two bibles found near the site where the bodies were found is a clear sign that the family was apparently praying in the living room of the house.
“Only the unity and the desire to help have kept us firm, it was hard work but we achieved the objective,” wrote Edwin Chavarría, director of the Fire Department, on his twitter account.
He added that “we have found watches, cups, Bibles, family photos. I approached the family, they are being cared for, we want them to feel cared for. ”
This is how Francisco Zeceña’s gloves were after several hours of work in the rain in Santo Tomás. EDH Photo / Yessica Hompanera
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The head of the San Marcos tax office, Carlos Herrera, said that after the recovery of the bodies, the identifications of each of the victims were carried out with the help of their relatives for legal purposes.
“The bodies are already selected by numbers, but the legal procedure is coming, which is to begin to identify each person by name, age, and if you could have characteristics of each of them (victims) in order to identify them,” he said. Herrera.
The entire country has joined the condolences with the Melara Salamanca family. EDH Photo / Courtesy
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The bodies were taken to the Institute of Legal Medicine so that the relatives can remove the bodies and that they can give them a Christian burial.
Hope is the last thing you lose
Wilfredo Salamanca, a relative of the victims, said that the rest of the relatives are comforted because the “reaction my family has had is to say that they were praying” when the tragedy occurred.
He pointed out that “until the last minute of today we have kept the faith, but we know that God’s plans are those for my family, we are aware of that and what we have done is pray the two families and that has given us enough strength” said the radio host.
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Before the search teams found the first body, relatives of the victims had great faith to find them alive.
“First God, they are going to be alive, we still have a lot of faith and if it is not the Lord’s will, he is the owner of our lives, he knows how we are going to get out of all this,” said a sister of María Isabel Salamanca, one of the victims.
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