(Fox
) Spain on Monday delivered to Panama a shipment of 11 tons of humanitarian aid for victims of the December floods, the Spanish Embassy said.
The aid was transferred by embassy Minister-Counselor Bernardo Lopez to the head of Panama’s Sinaproc civil defense agency, Arturo Alvarado, at a former airbase on the banks of the Canal on the Pacific Ocean end of the waterway.
The supplies came from the Spanish foreign aid agency’s regional logistics center at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City and will equip about 500 families with cooking equipment and family hygiene items, reinforced plastic tarpaulins and blankets.
Two days of torrential rains last month in the provinces of Panama, Colon and Darien killed 10 people, left 2,720 homeless and damaged 2,586 houses, as well as destroying crops, bridges and roads, according to official figures.
The regional logistics center keeps in its inventory enough humanitarian materials to help 5,000 families and, in addition to Panama, over the past month it has also helped the governments of Venezuela and Colombia, countries which have also been severely affected by recent torrential rains and flooding.