Chapter 16 Summary

The torrential rain continues unabated for nearly five years. Macondo is awash in a sea of rot and mud, moss and insects live everywhere, and the buildings of the town crumble into the morass of humidity and constant flooding. The banana company's buildings are devastated, collapsed, and washed away, and the banana trees are swept away by the flooding. The town once again is a tiny provincial town and only the oldest established families remain as the floods continue. Aureliano Segundo grows old and thin, spending several months with Fernanda del Carpio and then several months with Petra Cotes; his vast livestock herds drown and his wealth washes away with the rain. Little Aureliano is accidentally spotted by Aureliano Segundo and thus becomes a tangential part of the Buendia family. Colonel Gerineldo Marquez dies and his funeral winds through the muddy streets in...