HURRICANE STAN - A Category One hurricane, winds of 130km/h (80mph), came
ashore 295km (185 miles) east of Mexico City. The storm, downgraded to a tropical
storm, headed slowly south-west while weakening further.
FACT FILE OCTOBER 12 2005
Stan slammed ashore as a Category One hurricane in southern Mexico last
week, [October 4 2005] but it quickly lost force. Most of the damage has been
done by torrential rains.
GUATEMALA
Impact: Guatemala is the worst-hit country. Entire villages have been
wiped out by landslides and flash floods, and hundreds of people have
been killed. Rescuers have still not been able to reach some 90 affected
towns.
Officials want to abandon some of the communities that have been
engulfed by the mud and declare them mass graves. More than 1,400
people are believed to have died in the Mayan towns of Panajab and
Tzanchaj, 180 kilometres west of the country's capital, Guatemala City.
An estimated
three million
people in
Guatemala –
nearly half of
the country's
population –
were affected by
the flooding and
mudslides. It
makes it difficult
for neighbours
to help each
other because
they have all
been affected.
So we're talking
about perhaps
sixty to seventy
per cent of all
those affected
and in some
villages in
Guatemala, one
hundred per
cent of the
village has been
affected…in fact
even buried.
There's talk
about some of
these villages
being declared
mass graves,
basically. So this
represents an
extremely high
impact in a
relatively small
area of these
tropical rains."
More than 90,000 people are living in shelters, and water and electricity
have been cut in the affected areas. The Guatemalan President, Oscar
Berger, has made a plea for international assistance. Confirmed death
toll: 652
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NEWS ITEMS
It is the region’s poorest people who have been worst hit, with precariously-built hillside
communities drowned by mudslides
Up to 1,400 people are feared to have been buried alive since the early hours of Wednesday, when
an avalanche of rock and mud tumbled from the slopes of San Lucas volcano onto the towns of
Panabaj and Tzanchaj, 180km west of Guatemala City.
The mayor of Panabaj, says his village "will no longer exist. He
has asked the central government to declare the devastated area
a mass grave. We are tired, we no longer know where to dig.
The bodies are so rotten that they can no longer be identified.
They will only bring disease."
The mayor adds that some 77 bodies have been recovered from
Panabaj, but about 250 are still missing.
In nearby Tzanchaj, firefighters have had to order villagers to
give up their desperate digging on unstable ground.
BBC News correspondents report Mayan villagers are struggling with a dilemma, as local cultural
traditions dictate that bodies must be recovered and given a decent burial.
Rescuers said they needed heavier equipment and hundreds of workers to dig out the bodies and
estimated that the task could take a month.
Cecilia Gómez, 65, and her three children live in a community where water levels almost reached their
rooftop. Cecilia lost almost everything. She and her children had a 2.6-acre block on which they sowed
corn. The land is now under water and the family also lost some of their poultry.
“Not wanting to lose the few things we had, we did not want to leave the property, but when the water
levels reached our waists, my daughter and I were taken to the shelter, but my other children stayed
there, sleeping on a raft, so the thieves could not steal the few things we had left,” Cecilia said.
Cecilia’s family harvests 40 sacks of corn from the cornfield which they sell for about US$680.
Cecilia cries, as she does not know how they will survive this year with the loss of their harvest and the
money it brought in.
A number of villages have been closed off because some bridges have been destroyed.
In Guatemala the exports of fresh produce and flowers has come to a full stop. Many
growers export to El Salvador and Mexico, but with all their fields flooded, they have no
idea how to generate income that will help pay off their loans with the rural bank Banrural.
Although damages still have to be assessed precisely, the government has estimated the
loss at $ 400 mln.
It is mostly banana plantations and vegetable [beans and tomatoes] fields which have been
thoroughly damaged. Also national livestock and industries have also been dealt severe
blows. 20% of the Guatemalan economy relies on agriculture.
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STRATEGIES – reports from the week after Hurricane Stan hit C America
1. SHORT TERM STRATEGIES
United Nations relief operations are currently spearheaded by a disaster assistance and
coordination team.
A host of UN agencies, including the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Program,
the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and United Development
Program are providing assistance.
The UN has identified priorities for international emergency relief assistance as:
water,
sanitation and hygiene;
food;
shelter;
household items;
health services;
communication and access to services;
coordination and support.
It is about to launch a Flash Appeal for approximately $22 million for Guatemala alone.
The US Southern Command, said the helicopters dispatched to Guatemala on Saturday would
conduct search and rescue operations and emergency supply movements. Relief teams had not
been able to reach some areas of the country yet. "The Guatemalan government has done an
excellent job so far in trying to reach out into the affected area and assess the damage and provide
relief to its citizens," the General said. "There's still quite a few areas where They've been unable
to get to because the weather's been bad. That's why we're here with our helicopters."
UNICEF say that the number of displaced people is rising rapidly. In Guatemala at least
100,000 people are affected, but that figure is rising by the hour."
07 Oct 2005
Source: AlertNet
A map of the location of shelters for people displaced by Hurricane Stan can be viewed at:
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/satelliteimages/112867531477.htm
The priority is to help the hundreds of thousands of people now living in temporary shelters. "In
those temporary shelters a very large number are women and children," It's very important to
deal with the state of mind of these children, having lost everything and even perhaps having
lost some of their closest relatives."
“I was so happy to see my children drawing pictures and having fun. It is such a relief because my
children have been here for four days without going outside. They have been feeling sad and sick.”
While some people may soon be able to return to their villages, yet more rains are expected to
hit the area in the coming weeks and are likely to continue for the next two months.
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2. LONG TERM STRATEGIES
Social Organizations Work Group (COS) described the economic effects in Guatemala
from tropical storm Stan as "deep and long-lasting’’.
"It is necessary to implement a National Emergency Plan to assist the more than 130,000
injured people and over 100,000 evacuated”. They urged the government to allocate funds
for medical aid, food and potable water for at least six months.
Long term support needs to be
(i) food provisions, because people have lost their farms,
(ii) reconstruction of the national infrastructure, repairing bridges and roads
``We're not going to rebuild anybody's home in the same place if it's at risk. We're going to
move them to safer places so these tragedies aren't repeated.''
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