El Salvador Flooding Aftermath

Since the intense rain, floods and landslides in Central America have not shown up in Canadian newspapers, I thought I would update my blog to let people back home know what’s been on everyone’s minds here, since my arrival in El Salvador last week. And although I was lucky and wasn’t severely affected by the rains (other than not being able to dry my clothes, explore the city, or start my job), it was a crazy time to arrive in the country, to say the least.  

I will continue on from my previous blog post from Tuesday! Even though on Tuesday it looked like the rain was stopping, Wednesday it began again and poured all day, and was probably one of the worst days yet. Thankfully the rain has now finally stopped for good, and since Thursday we have had beautiful sunny weather. But the country has been left with a lot of devastation. After 10 days of rain, 34 people have died, (mostly buried by mudslides in their own homes) and over 50,000 people have been evacuated from their communities. In total, more than 150,000 Salvadorans have been affected by the floods, in practically every department ( or state/province) in the country, hence why it has been a national emergency. And keep in mind that the total population of El Salvador is only 6.1 million people to begin with.

In all of Central America, there have been over 100 deaths, and over one million people have been affected by the storms. The United Nations World Food Program is very concerned about the immediate as well as long-term impact on food security that this disaster will have on Central America’s poorest people, who have already been affected by rising food prices, before the storm hit. The region is very vulnerable to these types of disasters, and the United Nations has classified Central America as one of the regions in the world most affected by climate change.

Unfortunately, El Salvador was the country hit the hardest. On Wednesday, President Mauricio Funes appealed for international aid on national television, saying “I want to tell the world that El Salvador is going through one of the most dramatic disasters in its history”. International media has compared the disaster to the 1998 Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands of people. Although the 1998 disaster resulted in more deaths, the media here is saying that in reality, the current disaster is much worse than in 1998, because the damage has been more widespread and the flooding has been more severe. "We think of hurricanes as the thing that causes the most damage, but you can have rains that are just as damaging without the hurricane," Herman Rosa Chavez, El Salvador's minister of the environment and natural resources, told CNN.  President Funes noted that it has resulted into a major national emergency due to "the intensity of the rainfall, the duration of the phenomenon and the extent of the affected territory". The heavy rains left approximately 10% of the country under water. Four major bridges have been destroyed, roads, including major highways, have been washed out, and the Grande and Lempa rivers have flooded farmland and houses, causing millions of dollars in economic losses. Some places in the country accumulated over 150 cm of rainfall, much greater than the previous record set during Hurricane Mitch of 86 cm. A difference as to why there were more deaths during Hurricane Mitch, then with the current storms, is that in 1998 the rainfall came in a matter of a few days, whereas this past week the rain was spread out over 10 days. As well, the Salvadoran president claimed that this time the government was more prepared for a disaster like this, and evacuated people earlier, hence preventing many more deaths. On Thursday President Funes said that "the loss will be great, more than ever before from a natural phenomenon of this type." Hurricane Mitch cost $262 million in damages when it hit in 1998. And as I noted before, there is a fear of possible virus outbreaks and food shortages. The effects of this natural disaster will linger for many more months. People who were evacuated, and who have been living in one of the 600 + shelters in the country, are returning to their homes now. Some will have much work to do to repair their houses, while others don’t even have homes to return to anymore. The worst is that these people were already very poor to begin with. Some of the worst hit areas of the country are only receiving aid now, because many roads were impassable so help was not able to reach them until now.  

This link from the BBC has some good pictures of the damage done during the storm. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15332068

As well, here is a video clip from Al Jazeera's website.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/10/2011102241527998644.html

A few notes to say about the video clip – first, the aid given to the government by the UN and other countries goes to the municipal governments to give out to the communities. During past disasters, past governments have been known to sell this foreign aid to make money, instead of giving it to the communities who need it the most. On Friday afternoon, I accompanied a few of my co-workers from ANADES to solicit donations from the government-sponsored agency warehouse which has been in charge of giving out the aid. Unfortunately, we were denied help – we were told for transparency reasons, that the aid only goes to the hands of municipal governments to distribute the aid, and not to NGOs. . Supposedly this current government, who has been in power for the past 2 years, is less corrupt – so hopefully that is the case, and the aid will go to where it is supposed to. Although one would think that NGOs such as ANADES, which has experience in disaster relief, would be more efficient and effective in handling aid distribution than municipal governments. Some of my co-workers have been visiting the Bajo Lempa area this past week, which the video said has been one of the hardest hit areas, as they work in some communities there. Since I work in the education area of ANADES, I have not been going out to the communities to hand out aid, but I have been hearing very sad stories from my co-workers.

ANADES is divided into 3 main programs: Education, Community Development, and Health. Besides working in San Salvador, where the ANADES Headquarters are located, the ANADES community development program works in 36 other communities in the country, and sends “community social promoters” to work with the people living in marginalized areas. There are about 11 of these community social promoters working for ANADES, including two other MCC volunteers from Canada – Elizabeth and Lynden. Normally the community development program focuses on issues such as community organization, preventative health and nutrition, support for people living with HIV/AIDS, and sustainable agriculture. But since ANADES also attends to emergencies, they have had a very busy past week, working long hours trying to get to the communities most affected by the storms, travelling with some doctors who also work or are volunteering with ANADES, to deliver food and medical aid. These are some selfless and amazing people that I have been getting to know, and they could use your prayers as they will continue to have lots of work to do in the coming weeks. A couple afternoons I helped out with sorting/organizing the medicines. I have never seen so much gauze, aspirin, cold medication etc. in my whole entire life! They also use a lot of natural remedies, which is really cool! Anyways, it’s hard to know what all to write about this disaster – there’s so much more that could be said! The effects of the storm are complicated, and won’t go away anytime soon. But I am very happy that I am working with this amazing organization, the more I learn about ANADES, the more impressed I am with the work they do, and the holistic approach they take in everything they do, which has been very evident in their response to this disaster.

On another note, schools (which were closed due to the risks of floodings and mudslides) will finally open again on Monday, so I am very excited to finally meet my 22 new pre-schoolers, early Monday morning! Wish me luck! I will blog again in a few days, and hopefully my next blog will be more upbeat/positive than this one! Lastly, I just want to thank everyone for all the emails and facebook messages I received these past couple weeks – I had a rough past couple weeks, which included (among many other things) the death of my Grandma Lichti, as well as moving to a new country, and your emails, thoughts and prayers meant a lot!! So thank you so much!!!!! And keep them coming :)