GUATEMALA: HURRICANE STAN MUDSLIDE KILLS 1,400 PEOPLE FROM ONE VILLAGE
"Aid trickled into Panabaj, a Guatemalan village devastated by a mudslide that killed some 1,400 people, . . . . Firemen arrived to look for bodies under a quagmire that is up to 40 feet (12 meters) deep in places . . . " (Reuters report)
"Like most "natural" disaster, the poor are the hardest hit. Thousands are dead and tens of thousands of mainly Mayan farmers have lost their entire crop, and no one and no institution will bail them out! Over the next months, tens of thousands of families will be left with two choices: starve, or migrate ("illegally" and dangerously) to the north (ie, the USA) hoping to find work and send money to their families. Few will have the alternative of replanting and rebuilding homes because without outside support they have nothing with which to do it." (Annie Bird, Guatemala City)
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Please make tax-charitable donations to Rights Action's "Hurricane Stan Emergency Fund". We are channeling your funds directly to Guatemalan local organizations working urgently in the most affected regions.
BELOW:
- how to donate
- news article: "Anger at slow aid to Guatemala mudslide village", where 1,400 Mayan campesinos killed
- work update: from Rights Action's co-director about what some of our partner groups are doing
Please re-distribute this appeal. If you want on-off this elist: info@rightsaction.org.
For more information: 416-654-2074, info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org
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HOW TO DONATE: TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS (in the USA and Canada)
Credit card donations: www.rightsaction.org (Make donation on behalf of “Hurricane Stan Relief”)
Make check to "Rights Action" (write "Hurricane Stan Emergency Fund" on memo-line) and mail to:
- UNITED STATES: Rights Action, Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- CANADA: Rights Action, 509 St. Clair Av. W., box73527, Toronto ON, M6C-1C0
In due course, Rights Action will properly account for all funds received.
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NEWS ARTICLE: "Anger at slow aid to Guatemala mudslide village"
PANABAJ, Guatemala, Oct 9 (Reuters, by Frank Jack Daniels) - Aid trickled into a Guatemalan village devastated by a mudslide that killed some 1,400 people, and Maya Indian residents complained on Sunday the government was far too slow to react to the tragedy.
Peasants from neighboring villages brought clothing for the victims, rowing canoes across Lake Atitlan to Panabaj. The village was buried under a deadly slick of mud, rocks and trees that slid down a volcano after rains from Hurricane Stan. A federal deputy from western Guatemala said 300 people had died in another mudslide in the town of Tacana, near the Mexican border, but that could not be confirmed.
In Panabaj, Spanish firemen arrived to look for bodies under a quagmire that is up to 40 feet (12 meters) deep in places and Guatemalan soldiers brought water in a truck. But government help was little and late, local officials said. . . .
Hurricane Stan's rains triggered the mudslide as Panabaj's residents slept early on Wednesday. Mud-covered roads prevented rescuers from reaching the site for two days. No senior government official went to the village and the mayor said racism against the Mayas might be to blame. "It's like they are giving a message that it is because we are indigenous. That is the point. A lot of my people are saying it is because we are indigenous," Esquina said.
Santiago Atitlan was a hot spot during Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996. Years of abuses by soldiers helped leftist rebels recruit Indians in the town and tensions peaked in 1990 when drunken soldiers killed 13 locals.
A supply of beans, rice and pasta sent by the capital's city hall was handed out but peasants said the federal government was negligent. "The government didn't send anything here. There is nothing," said Francisco Boron, 43, dressed in traditional calf-length white pants and carrying a machete.
Rescuers with hand tools struggled to find bodies in the brown grunge covering Panabaj and local officials said it would likely be left as a mass grave. Firefighters poked long poles into the mud in search of victims but feared sinking into the quagmire themselves. "It is very difficult. Most of the people are where the mud is thickest and we haven't been able to work there because of the danger," said firefighter Max Chiquito.
The fire department put the death toll at around 1,400 villagers and Esquina said between 1,000 and 1,500 had died. Only 76 bodies have been found. The storm killed some 300 people elsewhere in Guatemala and 103 others in the rest of Central America and southern Mexico.
Julio Cesar Lopez, an opposition deputy from the western department of Huehuetenango, told Reuters some 300 people died on Thursday when a mudslide hit the town of Tacana, in the neighboring San Marcos region. "I am in telephone contact with Tacana. People were using two churches as shelters but the hill fell down on top of them," said Lopez, . . . .
Guatemalan newspaper reports said about 2,000 were missing in San Marcos and Defense Minister Carlos Aldana told Reuters the armed forces were trying to reach the stricken area. "San Marcos is the place where, from today, we are giving most importance because it has not been dealt with at all due to the weather conditions and the road access." he said. . . . ".
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WORK REPORT: by Annie Bird, Rights Action co-director, in Guatemala, October 9, 2005
HURRICANE STAN - DEAD & DISAPPEARED IN THE THOUSANDS. TENS OF THOUSANDS HOMELESS & WITHOUT FOOD, WATER, CLOTHING, MEDICINE, . . .
In just three days, Hurricane Stan has quietly destroyed the lives of thousands of Guatemalans. Like the devastating effects of Hurricane Mitch (1998), the death and damage were not caused by hurricane force winds. The death and destruction were caused by three days of constant rain over the already precarious homes of poor,mainly Mayan people.
Currently, the Guatemalan Government officially recognizes that 160 people have been killed. However, in speaking with our community-based partner organizations in the areas hardest hit, it becomes clear that the death toll is in the thousands and tens of thousands have lost everything.
On Tuesday (October 4) - the first day of the storm, when no one suspected the magnitude of the damages to come - , Rights Action partner group CODECA (Comite de Desarrollo Comunitario), based in the town of Mazatenango, Suchitepequez, had already installed an emergency shelter for a thousand people already been left homeless. Over the next two days the rains continued, the rivers swelled and it has become virtually impossible to understand the extent of the damages, hundred of villages are entirely cut off from all communication, there are not sufficient boats to visit the villages and trucks can't pass, but CODECA continues to feed and provide shelter and other emergency support to the displaced.
Likewise, CCDA (Comite Campesino del Altiplano) is struggling to provide food and shelter to thousands of homeless families who lived in villages on the slopes of the volcanos that surround the famous tourist destination of Lake Atitlan (department of Solola), and is distributing emergency medical kits, cloths and blanket to those for who they can't provide shelter. Though CCDA reports that emergency workers in the area have recovered 86 bodies, thousands more are unaccounted for.
Two entire villages in the municipality of Santiago Atitlan, with thousands of homes, have entirely disappeared in a mud slide. (See article, above)
In the Pacific coastal and mountainous department of San Marcos the Movement of Farm Workers (Movimiento de Trabajadores del Campo) is working nonstop to provide emergency food to the displaced in the 10 emergency shelters that have been set up just in the departmental capital of San Marcos. Like CODECA, in this chaos they cannot even begin to estimate the death and damages as hundreds of villages are completely cut off from all communication. Like CCDA, they report that over uncountable bodies have been recovered in two of the municipalities where they have been able to communicate, but that hundreds more are reported missing, just in the few areas where they have been able to communicate.
Similar community-based organizations in Huehuetenango, San Marcos, Retaheuleu, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan, Suchitepequez, Solola, Esquintla and other departments are reporting damages. In many areas it continues to rain. Weather reports indicate a second hurricane is heading up from the coast of Venezuela. Throughout the Pacific and central highlands, desperate villagers find shelter for their families from the constant rain and cold in their fragile homes, and hope that the next mudslide doesn't take their village, while in the Pacific coast the flooding has left thousands without homes, and without roads to take them to higher land, they wait in whatever shelter can be found for the flooding to abate.
Like most "natural" disaster, the poor are the hardest hit. Thousands are dead and tens of thousands of mainly Mayan farmers have lost their entire crop, and no one and no institution will bail them out! Over the next months, tens of thousands of families will be left with two choices: starve, or migrate ("illegally" and dangerously) to the north (ie, the USA) hoping to find work and send money to their families. Few will have the alternative of replanting and rebuilding homes because without outside support they have nothing with which to do it.
Rights Action partner organizations are working non-stop in these extreme conditions, dealing with death and massive displacement and a total lack of communication. They are facing the tremendous challenge in providing emergency food aid and shelter, and are providing a key channel of communication between the villages where their members are reporting from and government officials and aid agencies attempting to address the problems.
And - importantly - they are in it for the long haul. Our partner organizations are not short-term relief organizations. They are organizations comprised of people from the very communities and regions affected by Hurricane Stan. They are on the front lines of providing short-term assistance and they will be on the front-lines of engaging in long-term re-building. One, two, six months from now, when the news has dropped out of the papers, RA partners will be looking for ways to help their communities rebuild, replant and start new lives. Please support them.
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HOW TO DONATE: TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS (in the USA and Canada)
Credit card donations: www.rightsaction.org (Make donation on behalf of “Hurricane Stan Relief”)
Make check to "Rights Action" (write "Hurricane Stan Emergency Fund" on memo-line) and mail to:
- UNITED STATES: Rights Action, Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- CANADA: Rights Action, 509 St. Clair Av. W., box73527, Toronto ON, M6C-1C0
In due course, Rights Action will properly account for all funds received. For more information: 416-654-2074 / info@rightsaction.org / www.rightsaction.org
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