THE toll from weeks of heavy rains across Colombia has risen to 174 people dead and over 1.5 million homeless, the Colombian Red Cross said.

A car bomb ripped open cars and storefronts in the administrative centre of Colombia’s Pacific port of Buenaventura, killing six people and wounding more than 30, authorities said.

Police are searching for the killers of 12 young men whose bodies were found floating near a beach on Colombia’s Pacific coast, their hands tied behind their backs and each shot in the head.

Hooded gunmen have assassinated a Colombian newspaper and radio reporter while he and his family were watching a soccer game on TV.