Lucy Williams reports on the devastation in Colombia

The rains have flooded the country's main rivers, and mudslides have devastated the worst-affected regions in the south-east.

Thousands of dollars in damage have been caused by the downpour in the central coffee-producing area of the country.

Officials in five provinces - Cauca, Narino, Valle, Cundinamarco and the capital Bogota - have called for a maximum state of alert.

Colombia's Prevention of Disasters office has issued a red alert for communities near the San Jorge river, 410km north-east of the capital.

Landslide deaths

In Cauca province, 14 people were killed and more than 200 displaced on Friday when the Oyuco river flooded areas surrounding the village of Inza.

In the rural town of Quinchia in western Colombia, a landslide crushed a house, killing two adults and four children in one family.