Relentless rains trigger landslides, sinkholes, and closures that isolate communities across Loja and neighboring Azuay.

While the people of Vilcabamba fight for security, the geography of the entire Loja province is fighting a losing battle against the weather. The winter season of 2026 has arrived with a ferocity that has overwhelmed the region’s infrastructure, severing critical arteries and isolating communities behind walls of mud and rock.

For the week of January 26th, the map of southern Ecuador is a maze of red “Road Closed” signs. The rains have triggered a geological instability that goes beyond simple landslides; entire hillsides are mobilizing.

The Chaguarpamba Blockade

The most critical failure occurred on the Loja – Chaguarpamba road, the primary lifeline connecting the highland capital of Loja to the coastal lowlands and the port of Machala. In the early hours of Tuesday, a massive volume of material detached from Cerro Tintanil.

The scale of the slide is immense. Authorities from the ECU 911 service report that 90% of the roadway is blocked. This is not a simple cleanup job; it is an excavation. The slide brought down boulders the size of cars and tons of saturated earth.

The implications are immediate and severe. This route is the commercial jugular of the south. Trucks carrying produce, gas, and supplies are stranded. While the Ministry of Transport and Public Works (MTOP) has declared the reopening of the section near Río Pindo , the main blockage at Tintanil remains a choke point. Drivers are being forced to take long, treacherous detours, increasing travel times by hours and driving up the cost of transport.

The Sinkhole at Punzara

If Chaguarpamba is a blockage, the situation in the Punzara sector (on the Loja-Malacatos road) is a deletion. Here, the road did not get covered; it disappeared.

Heavy rains caused the underground drainage systems to collapse, leading to a sinkhole that swallowed approximately 10 linear meters of the asphalt. The road is completely impassable for vehicles.

The scene at Punzara is one of desperate improvisation. Commuters, unable to drive through, are engaging in dangerous “transbordos” (transshipments). Buses from Loja drop passengers at one side of the abyss; men, women, and children then walk through the mud and debris to the other side, where buses from Malacatos wait to complete the journey. It is a daily migration of frustration, performed under the constant threat of further collapse.

The Sacapo Disaster

The rains have also invaded homes. In the parish of San Pedro de Vilcabamba, the Sacapo ravine—usually a dry or trickling bed—transformed into a raging torrent of mud and debris. The alluvial fan struck with little warning, impacting 13 homes.

The damage was catastrophic for the affected families. Mud filled living rooms and destroyed appliances. Ten families had to be evacuated immediately by the Secretariat of Risk Management. The tragedy in Sacapo highlights the lack of urban planning enforcement; many of these homes were built in known risk zones, on deforested slopes that could no longer hold back the water. “We have to keep the hillsides forested,” pleaded Nancy Hilger, the zonal director of the environment, a warning that comes too late for the residents now shoveling mud from their bedrooms.

Nabón: The Moving Mountain

Just north of the Loja border, in the Azuay canton of Nabón, a slow-motion disaster is unfolding. A macro-landslide affecting 35 hectares has reactivated. This is not a sudden crash, but a relentless creep of the earth that is tearing buildings apart.

Currently, 130 homes are in the risk zone. The local health center, the potable water plant, and the bus terminal are all in the path of the deformation. The roads in Nabón are buckling, creating waves in the asphalt that make driving nearly impossible. The declaration of emergency is in effect, but fighting a moving mountain is a battle that engineering rarely wins quickly.

As the rains continue to fall, the connectivity of the south hangs by a thread. The “boots on the ground” reality for any traveler in Loja this week is one of uncertainty: a commute that should take one hour might take four, if you arrive at all.