Posted June 4, 2010, 2:52 pm by Kevin Grubb
Tropical Storm Agatha: Our response in Guatemala unfolds
Country: Guatemala
Topics: Emergencies
This week's Tropical Storm Agatha has left 150,000 persons displaced throughout Guatemala as a result of flooding, damage and destruction of housing, roads and bridges, and mudslides and landslides.
Photo: Mercy Corps
The storm struck on day two of the so-called hurricane season, and, unfortunately, the rains — as the hurricane seasons is also the rainy season — continue to fall.
Overnight, flooding raged through another five villages and wiped out another bridge, washing away possibilities for these villagers to reach family, community centers, their crops and the market.
Our team has been working around the clock to assess the damage and get targeted assistance to those most in need. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Mercy Corps is distributing food rations, water and hygiene kits for initial survival support to over 600 families in communities of Zacapa, El Progreso and Solola regions.
Many of these families have lost their homes in flooding and mudslides and are in temporary camps in schools and churches in the area. In the mid-term, we are shipping three or four water purification systems to pump water from river, filter and purify it, and provide a more long-term, sustainable source of drinking water than bottles and water tankers driving from clean water spots farther afield.
While this initial support is essential for survival, the long-term interventions will be more crucial in engendering and building long-term solutions for these affected families and communities to rehabilitate crop fields, provide seedlings for replanting crops and land rehabilitation efforts. Infrastructure reconstruction will need to happen quickly to reestablish links between communities across rivers and for farmers and families to access markets.
(Reuters) - Collapsed roads and highway bridges complicated rescue efforts in Guatemala on Tuesday after Tropical Storm Agatha drenched Central America, burying homes under mud and killing at least 178 people.
Dozens of people were still missing and rescue teams struggled to reach remote rural communities after the storm cut off roads and destroyed up to 18 major road bridges and dozens of smaller footbridges.
"We're trying to get to the communities but we're finding that bridges are down and we have to walk, so it is taking so much longer," said firefighter Rony Veliz.
Some 35,000 people remained in emergency shelters three days after Agatha, the first named storm of the 2010 Pacific hurricane season, hit western Guatemala, dumping more than 3 feet (1 meter) of rain in places and raising concern over the coffee crop there and in El Salvador.
Guatemalan aid workers relied on six helicopters sent by the United States, as well as private helicopters, to get tents and medical supplies to remote towns on the Pacific coast, but villagers in inland areas were frustrated at the lack of help.
"We've gone several days now without aid from the government and we don't have enough water and food," said a caller to Guatemalan radio from the town of Huehuetenango in the western highlands.
At least 152 people were killed in Guatemala, either crushed in their homes or swept away by swollen rivers, and 100 others were missing, according to the government. Twelve people were killed in El Salvador and 14 in Honduras.
By Tuesday, the rain had stopped and Guatemala reopened its international airport. But giant sinkholes in the capital created death traps on streets, having swallowed entire buildings as they opened up and blocking off major roads.
"I've got to move house before this hole gets any wider," said a 50-year-old man whose home is just a few feet away from the edge of the one of the gaping pits in the city.
Health Minister Ludwin Ovalle said outbreaks of dengue and malaria were likely in the coming days. "We will see outbreaks because of stagnant water," he said.
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