 |
SPECIAL REPORTS |
| |
EL
SALVADOR: Nature Takes Advantage of
Unlearned Lessons
By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR (IPS) - 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.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
