I thought I would recommend a couple more articles about the El Salvador floods that I read in the past few days.
The first article is about how human factors contributed to the tragic effects of the floods in Central America. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2011/1025/Deadly-flooding-in-Central-America-how-people-contributed-to-the-tragedy
It's a safe assumption that these same factors worsen the horrible impact of most natural disasters that happen throughout the world, and not just here in Central America. And it's so sad that although there are many things that could be done to prevent a lot of the deaths and devastation (by governments, local communities, and us back home in the Western world), history continues to repeat itself over and over again.
The second article continues talking about the aftermath of the floods, and in particular, the devastating loss of crops throughout the country.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15457562
Besides the immediate needs of shelter, food and health care, the long term needs will be even greater. The rains happened just before crops were ready to be harvested, and so not only will this year's crops be lost, leading to a potential food shortage in the country, but there will also be a lack of seeds available for the next year's crops.
Although Mennonite Central Committee does not have any specific emergency relief for El Salvador or the rest of Central America, the needs of the country are great and widespread, not just with the immediate disaster relief. So I'm sure any money going to the country would help out a lot! If you would like to donate some money through MCC, there are 2 different options I found on the MCC website - you can donate to a program run by ANADES, the New Dawn Association of El Salvador (the partner organization that I'm working for) for people living with HIV and AIDS in El Salvador, or you can just donate to MCC's programming in El Salvador in general, and the money would be distributed to MCC's 3 partner organizations in the country (including ANADES).
Here's the link for more information:
https://donate.mcc.org/filter/bycountry/results/taxonomy%3A5.39
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