Eleven people were killed on the spot by lightning, during a religious ceremony. The ceremony was held in a mountainous region in northern Colombia. Members of the Wiwa ethnic group were performing a spiritual “harmonization” ritual in the mountains, when the lightning hit them. Fifteen other members were hurt during the lightning incident. The rescue team which went up to bring the survivors to safety was formed out of army members. Some of the victims required transport by helicopter in order to safely make it to the hospital in the city of Santa Marta. Most of the injuries suffered by the victims are second and third degree burns. President Juan Manuel Santos was the one who ordered the military to go and help the victims get to safety. Otherwise, the victims would have had to travel by foot for six whole hours in order to get to the closest road.
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The incident took place on Sunday, near the town of Guachaca, in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Approximately 60 members of the Wiwa tribe had gathered inside a temple. The lightning hit the building and burned it down to the ground. The lightning took place at midnight, during the tribe’s traditional ritual, done by the tribe’s elders – also known as “Mamos”. Officials declared there had been lightning strikes in that region before, however none were of this magnitude.
President Juan Manuel Santos wrote the following message: “Our solidarity is with the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta indigenous community”. The Colombian Indigenous Agency will be helping the families of the ones affected by the lightning incident. Also, the agency stated that the Wiwa tribe tends to carry out such rituals of “spiritual harmonization” whenever they are facing internal issues or environmental problems. Mauricio Blanco, an indigenous administrative official said the tragedy was like no other seen before in that region. He declared: “Yes, we’ve had small tragedies from flashes of lighting that have happened in the mountains, but not like this, of this magnitude, that hit directly over a ceremonial house belonging to the people of the Sierra”. In Colombia, there are 87 different tribes. The indigenous people living in the country represent about 3.4 percent of the population.