• by Edgardo Ayala (san salvador)
• Monday, November 09, 2009
• Inter Press Service

Cruz Ayala, 55, weeps inconsolably over the bodies of his 71-year-old mother, Catalina, and his 15-year-old niece Carolina outside of a chapel in the town of Verapaz in the central Salvadoran province of San Vicente.

The two were among the people killed when Sunday's torrential rains caused a mudslide that covered part of the town of 3,000, which is located around 50 km from the capital. Another niece, 14-year-old Evelyn, is among the dozens of people reported missing.

'There were about 20 of us up on a roof. We thought people were coming to evacuate us, when we heard the shouting. But no, it was the shouts of the people being dragged away by the current, who were asking us to help, and we couldn't,' Cruz says, sobbing.

Another five bodies are on the ground outside the chapel, covered with mud-soaked blankets

A total of 12 people in Verapaz were killed, while the nationwide total is 130 in the hardest-hit provinces: San Vicente, San Salvador, La Paz, La Libertad and Cuscatlán. At least 60 people are missing.

In addition, 1,570 houses were destroyed or damaged and 7,500 people have been left homeless. Sunday's was the worst natural catastrophe since the January-February 2001 earthquakes. The material and economic losses have not been estimated, although President Mauricio Funes said the damages were 'incalculable.'

The rains were the result of low pressure in the Pacific ocean caused by Hurricane Ida, which is expected to reach the U.S. Gulf Coast early Tuesday.

In a nationally broadcast address Sunday night, Funes said 'the drama we are experiencing is the product of the precarious conditions in large swathes of the country due to the lack of buffer zones and risk prevention efforts, which have been demanded for years but were never made,' said Funes, referring to 20 years of government by the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).

Funes, who took office in June, is the first leftist president in the history of El Salvador.

'This is a story that repeats itself every winter. But there has to be an end to this, once and for all,' said the president, who declared a national emergency to mobilise state resources to assist the victims of the flooding and landslides and begin reconstruction work.

Environmentalist Ángel Ibarra, president of the Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña (Salvadoran Ecological Unit, or UNES), cited a World Bank study which estimates that 90 percent of the population lives in areas at high relative risk of death from two or more natural hazards.

But Ibarra said the problem of natural disasters is magnified in the country because of the serious environmental deterioration on one hand, and the lack of policies to pull people out of poverty and social exclusion on the other.

Most of the victims of catastrophes like flooding and mudslides are poor people who live in shacks in dangerous areas along riverbanks or hillsides.

He also told IPS that El Salvador lacks adequate disaster prevention and preparedness policies. 'When these problems happen, it's always as if it were the first time. We have a 'picking up the dead' policy. We only react after something happens.'

So although El Salvador, located on the earthquake-prone Ring of Fire and in the path of hurricanes, frequently suffers natural disasters, followed up by reports calling for an improved early warning system and other prevention measures, the system rarely functions when it is needed.

'We also suffer from socio-environmental and institutional vulnerability,' added Ibarra, pointing to the dearth of coordination between the different state agencies.

Starting last Wednesday, the weather reports were forecasting heavy rain over the weekend, and the government declared a 'green alert.' But the alert was not upgraded to orange until late Sunday morning, when deaths had already been reported in several parts of the country.

The national meteorological service, SNET, forecast 100 mm of rain. But late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, 355 mm fell in just four hours — a downpour even worse than the rainfall that accompanied Hurricane Mitch in 1998, when 400 mm fell in four days.

According to a May 2009 report by the National Forum for Risk Management (Mesa Nacional de Gestión de Riesgos or MPGR), a coalition of local and national emergency assistance organisations and official government agencies, 75 percent of the country is at risk of some kind of natural hazard.

'In the last 20 years,' says the report, 'El Salvador has suffered 12 major disasters, which have claimed more than 4,332 lives, left 2,760,659 people homeless and caused 3.9 billion dollars in losses. Women and girls have been hit hardest, because of the vulnerable conditions they live in.'

Ricardo Navarro, director of the Salvadoran Centre for Appropriate Technology (Centro Salvadoreño de Tecnología Apropiada or CESTA), told IPS that this impoverished Central American country is becoming even more vulnerable in social and environmental terms because 'economic interests, rather than social or environmental questions, predominate here.

'What we are seeing are the consequences of the destruction of forests to make way for more housing and even golf courses,' said Navarro. 'Now nature is taking revenge.'

Both Navarro and Ibarra complained, separately, that the government had significantly cut the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources budget — from 13 to eight million dollars for 2010 - instead of strengthening it with more funds.

'That means that not even this government is focusing on the environment,' said Navarro.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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