Story By: Maja Mishevksa, Sub Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash

CEN

This is the moment a nine-month-old baby covered in mud is carried to safety after being swept away in a deadly landslide.

The tot, identified as Dilan Matias Jaimes, was reported missing after a major landslide hit the area known as El Guamo Grande, in the municipality of Piedecuesta, in the northeastern Colombian department of Santander.

The landslide, caused by heavy rains which saw the Manco river overflow, destroyed houses and farms in the rural area of the municipality, leaving five dead and 11 missing so far, according to official sources.

Locals began searching for those missing and farmer Jose Daniel Jaimes found the baby 500 metres from where the landslide first hit.

He said: “We dug in the debris and I found the baby that was totally covered in mud. We cleaned up his eyes and carried him to give him to his father.”

In the video, the farmer can be seen carrying the tot who was given to his father who then left him under the care of the tot’s grandmother.

The grandmother, who has not been named, told reporters that it was a “miracle” the baby had been saved but added that the tot’s mother Ingrid Hernandez and her other two grandchildren, aged five and two years old, are still missing.

Cesar Garcia, the Director of the Department of Risk Management, said to local media that Dilan is being attended in the hospital. It is reported that the baby is in a healthy condition.

Two of the victims have been named as Blanca Belen, 45, Sorely Paez, 4, while Colombia’s President Ivan Duque regretted the tragedy.

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