✍Ecuador landslide, four months after: the shadow of tragedy still saddens Alausí

Rescuers have found 65 bodies following the landslide in southern Ecuador on Sunday 26 March. Despite 10 people still missing, official searches stopped at the end of June.

Four months after the disaster, I set off from Baños de Agua Santa - the so-called “gateway to the Amazon” in central Ecuador - and headed south to Alausí to find out how the town was coping.

“Why would you want to go there?”, locals asked in genuine confusion, “There’s nothing to see anymore.”

This wasn’t entirely true. In 2019, Alausí was designated a ‘Pueblo Mágico’ by the country’s Ministry of Tourism, a title given to towns rich in Ecuadorian culture and heritage.

It is also home to the Devil’s Nose train - the first stop on a thrilling adventure through the Andes. With one of the world’s most challenging tracks, the train was Alausí’s main pride and source of income.

At the beginning of 2020, soon before the pandemic, a presidential decree ordered the train’s permanent termination and tourist numbers have drastically dropped.

While its plazas and surrounding villages are authentic and welcoming, Alausí - with around 6,000 inhabitants - is inevitably quieter than other Ecuadorian cities.

Months after the tragedy, the town is still rooted in tradition. Every corner - every mural - radiates the historic red and green of Alausí’s flag. In the morning, a community band plays in the historical centre - a quaint area that can be toured on foot in minutes.

On Thursdays and Sundays, the streets fill with indigenous sellers from nearby villages who bring fruit and crafts. Watching over is the 21-metre statue of San Pedro - Alausí’s patron saint and the one constant figure that can be seen from anywhere in the town.

In practice, daily life isn’t too different. Yet many locals describe Alausí as still mourning.

One woman who suffered the landslide’s atrocities was María Valla Quinche, who sells ponchos, accessories, and handmade gifts for tourists. “On the Monday after it happened nobody said ‘good morning’,” she recalled, “We just hugged each other and cried.”

Relatively safe for Ecuador, which has experienced a surge in violent crime since the pandemic, locals in Alausí seem to know and say hello to each other. Despite not having relatives in the town, Valla Quinche says her neighbours are like family.

“They were desperate to find their loved ones”, she said, remembering people screaming and running. “Some of them had left their houses so quickly they didn’t even have time to put clothes on.”

For others, the night of the landslide evokes the memory of pulling families out from under the rubble. Víctor Rivadeneira, a farmer and owner of Alausí’s first backpacker hostel, described being two metres deep in debris. “The mountainside was still falling, but it was like flight or fight,” he said, “I stayed there because I wanted to help my town.”

Raised by Ecuadorian parents in Conneticut, close to the border with New York, Rivadeneira’s late father was from Alausí. “When I was old enough, I spent a year travelling in Ecuador and realised Alausí was where I belonged”, he said.

Like most people in the town, Rivadeneira was outraged that warnings about the precarious state of hillside dwellings had not been acted upon. On tenterhooks, as if reliving the moment, Rivadeneira showed his own video of the cracked Pan-American Highway just four hours before the catastrophe.

Despite cracks starting to appear in the area of the landslide in December 2022, he claims strict rules on closing local businesses without permits meant there were no evacuation rules, signs, or mock drills in case of disaster. “It’s sad my town had to go through this”, he said.

Since colonial times, Alausí usually celebrates the Festival of San Pedro every June. With dance, folklore, and bull running, it attracts both Ecuadorians and international tourists. This year, out of respect for mourning families, all activities were suspended.

Others feel it’s important to reactivate the economy. “Everyone mourns differently. I don’t believe in wearing black and not dancing for a whole year, but that’s the tradition of this town”, said Colombian restaurant owner Sara Londoño, living in Alausí, who preferred her real name not to be used.

Londoño says she had never been so scared as the night of the landslide, but she is not the only one who hopes tourists will come back.

“Alausí is known for its magic, its train, and the Ecuadorian Inca Trail”, says Rivadeneira. “Alauseños have also been very well recognised all over Ecuador, so when our town suffers it’s impossible not to dwell on it.”

“But like San Pedro”, he says, pointing up at the robust statue, “We have to carry on.”

By Natasha Tinsley