by Rod Hughes
“Daddy’s not coming back,’ commented five-year-old Valeria Salazar matter-of-factly, reported the daily paper Al Dia.
Valeria is the sole survivor of a family of six swept away in a flash flood Sunday afternoon while on a family outing, a tragedy that has hit hard not only their community of Palmitos de Naranjo but this entire family-oriented country.
“Daddy” was Luis Fernando Salazar, 42, his wife Rosales Barquero, 36, and their three sons, Luis Alejandro, Esteban and Jose Andres, 15, 12 and 11 respectively. They were on the grounds of Hotel Tierras Enamoradas in San Ramon.
By family accord, Enia, the sister of Valeria’s father, is caring for the little girl who enjoys playing with her cousins and, according to the Al Dia report, seems relatively unaffected by the event—as yet.
By all accounts, it was an exemplary family. They were rappelling (descending on ropes from the wall of a narrow canyon) as part of the hotel’s tour. The hotel has issued a press release saying that the flash flood came without warning and all safety procedures were in place. But the Tourism Institute (ICT) told Al Dia that the hotel had not submitted to a safety inspection to allow a permit by the Ministry of Health.
The tragedy underscores one of the dilemmas of adventure tours here—the divided responsibility among government agencies when it comes to licensing such tours. It also serves as a cautionary note for swimming or performing other activities in tropical rivers, especially during the rainy season. One always remains wary of whether clouds are gathered upriver because it can be perfectly dry where one is at riverside but a cloudburst may be happening on higher ground.
Carlos Herrera, accident prevention expert with the Red Cross, told the paper yesterday that rivers often give clues of a sudden head of water, such as turning a chocolate color, which indicates that the soil upriver is not absorbing the rainfall. Often, limbs, tree trunks and even accumulations of garbage tossed into rivers can cause a temporary dam that breaks unexpectedly, he added.
As Red Cross rescuer Luis Hertas explained, “The force of the water carried away the family and the guide that accompanied them (and) only the little girl was saved.”
The father was an exceptional employee at a Naranjo bank for 22 years and his eldest son a student at the Experimental Bilingual High School in Naranjo and the two younger sons attended sixth and fifth grades at the Palmitos grade school.
The tour is called “canyoning” here and contains some elements in common with mountain climbing. It is relatively new here but is growing in popularity undimmed by the tragedy. The paper noted that eight students speaking Hebrew went on the tour inconcernedly yesterday as an example of its popularity with mainly younger international tourists.