updates - photos #1 - photos #2 - photos #3
UPDATE FROM ANDREW WEEKS
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(4/28/06) I have just come back from Semana Santa in Santiago Atitlan so I'm reeking
of smoke, copal, and other sacredness.
I had the opportunity to talk to plenty of those involved in the Hospitalito — they have excellent doctors and nurses participating from many places and are doing a great job in the temporary accommodation — a reasonably sized house but clearly not ideal. They have just fixed up a new x-ray system so that is a major plus. Lyn, the Hospitalito's treasurer, took me to see a plot of land which they are hoping to buy. Things look positive although there's many a slip. It is a little far out of town although it seems the town is moving in that direction — a gas station is opening along the road and it seems some of the new houses for the homeless from the disaster will be even further in that direction towards Cerro de Oro. The land itself is a good size with some houses, a heli-pad and a dock. If it is to be a part donation that is a huge plus, and it's hard to see what could be better given the shortage of land nearer to, or in town and the lack of willingness on the part of owners to sell. At Panabaj the signs of devastation are overwhelming. Personal belongings and clothes still mark the site of some houses. We were looking for the house of friends, a whole family, who had perished but there was not a trace: all the trees were gone, the paths were new and no trace of walls. New permanent houses are being built right next to the Albergo — the temporary housing where families share cooking facilities, nine donated stoves to a kitchen. This is all very close to the deslave but this was land donated by the Catholic Church and needs must. The fast arriving rainy season will be a nervous time. Anyway, just to let you know what I found. Best wishes, Andrew |
Free DVD about the disaster
Donations
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EMAIL FROM KEN WOOD 4/11/06
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Dear Friends of Santiago Atitlán,
Happy Semana Santa! Pueblo a Pueblo is pleased to inform you that after many weeks of generous volunteer labor on the part of our webmaster, Marc Quimbey at Westwind Studios in Arkansas; our new website is up and running. It reflects many of the new initiatives that we have begun, as the people of Santiago Atitlan recover from the disaster. These include: Hospitalito Atitlan: The decision has been made that the Hospitalito cannot return to its original site in Panabaj. Together, Fundacion K'aslimaal (the Hospitalito governing board) and Pueblo a Pueblo have begun a Capital Campaign to purchase land and build a new, permanent Hospitalito for the community. The interim Hospitalito continues to provide medical services as we develop these plans. Mother/Child Program: With the new website, Pueblo a Pueblo and the Hospitalito have launched this individual sponsorship program to ensure the health of pregnant T'zutujil women and their infants. U.S. sponsors will be able to develop an Email relationship with their "adopted" mother and infant and the $25/mo. sponsorship will fund prenatal, delivery, post-natal and well-baby care to the neediest, at-risk mothers and their infants. Child Education and Health Program: The children of Panabaj who survived the mudslides, have endured the loss of their family members, friends and homes. Most are now living in temporary shelters. This sponsorship program is designed to support a local Panabaj, T'zutujil school and ensure that these 500 children can continue their education, receive a daily healthy meal and health care services. Each sponsor can communicate via email with their child, sharing words of encouragement, pictures and support. Besides individual sponsors, Pueblo a Pueblo is particularly interested in developing sponsorship by groups of U.S. students (classrooms, Spanish clubs, etc.) — providing educational and service learning opportunities for U.S. students. Other improvements you will note on the website: Volunteer information — both medical and non-medical. Santiago Atitlan Update page that feature new events every two weeks. Medical and non-Medical Wish Lists. Other Disaster Relief initiatives. Secure on-line donation capacity that will reduce our overhead expenses. On behalf of our Board of Directors, let me take this opportunity to again thank you for your support of the T'zutujil people. It is an honor for us to assist them to realize their dreams and to work with the many dedicated, thoughtful and caring volunteers and donors. We encourage you to visit our new website and appreciate any assistance you can give in promoting this cause to your family and friends. Sincerely,
Kenneth Wood
President
tel: (202) 302-0622 |
Donations
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EMAIL FROM KEN WOOD 2/23/06
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Dear Friends of Santiago and the Hospitalito Atitlán,
The following is an email from Dr. Bernie Page from the Hospitalito Atitlan. Squalid or spectacular, beautiful or brutal, delightful or dangerous, Santiago Atitlán continues to be an area of superlatives. Or maybe we just don't notice the everyday, because it is the everyday. February has been a wonderful month for us. For the first time in our existence, we have had more doctors than we really need. Due to that, Leah and I have skipped doing first call for over a week, instead catching up a little on administrative work. Where are we now? As I look back, it seems unreasonable that we could have possibly located, moved and reopened as a functioning hospital only 2 weeks after the mudslide. Maybe we were manic. The final official statistics on our mudslide are: Significantly wounded: 156 Bodies rescued: 80 Disappeared, presumed dead: 423 Living people rescued by the bomberos: 1,800. Considered "partially destroyed": the hospitalito, the Justice Center, the schools of Panabaj. Persons still in shelters: 3589. All this definitely took its toll on our little crew. Two long term volunteers, a doctor and a nurse, for a variety of reasons, threw in the towel and left. Jack and Leah and I have all had great rejuvenating trips to the states and consider ourselves pretty functional. A wonderful young pediatrician, Marly Larrabee, has joined us long term (though she is currently finishing up other commitments in Nicaragua). John Nelson, an OB-GYN, has been here for 3 months, plans to return in May for another 3 months. Kathy Roach, our wonderful support nurse from the US, has come back for a couple of more months. In addition, regarding the local paid staff, we have hired a "graduate" nurse (more or less like an RN) and another "auxiliar" nurse (more or less like an aid in training, but does RN duties) as well as another guardian and to top it off, we have an administrator! Who would ever have thought that I would say I wanted an administrator. Jose is a wonderful, always smiling man, who seems totally undaunted when the first, or second, or third plan do not work. He just smiles and goes on to make a fourth plan. From the huge disarray we were in when he started, he is slowly making progress. Let me give yesterday as an example of where we are (it was a good day!) We started with an administrative meeting at 7AM, with the doctors, head nurse, administrator. At 8 we moved on to "morning report" of the patients hospitalized, to be handed over to the new team (we actually have a medical student and a doctor almost every day this month) 5 attendings, 3 residents, 4 med students (it isn't usually like that). Main discussion revolved around a 72 year old man with severe respiratory problems. We decided he should probably be encouraged to be transferred to Roosevelt, the public hospital in Guatemala City. There was never any doubt that he needed a higher level of care than we could give. The only questions were, would he survive the trip, and would he indeed get a higher level of care there. He eventually went via "bomberos", accompanied by a resident and a medical student. After first arriving in their old converted Wells Fargo truck, they went back and got their newly donated ambulance to use for the transport. I am happy to report that no one proceeded past severe nausea on the winding road. The doctor did tell the driver that it was not an emergency that necessitated their current speed and to please slow down and improve their chance of arriving alive. They both say that the ER at Roosevelt makes our public hospitals look like country clubs. (We long timers are still trying to schedule a day to get a tour of several of our referral hospitals). It is still debatable whether he can receive a higher level of care there with their limited resources. Yesterday was the day for our surgeons to visit from Solola. Jack did the anesthesia for 4 surgeries: an 8 yr old circumcision, 3 adult hernias. I did my paper work. Last night around 1AM Jack was called in for anesthesia for a C section. The "comadrona" (midwife) said when she arrived that she knew the baby was sideways in the uterus. We are not sure why she let the woman labor at home for 9 hours. The resident who was on duty examined the woman vaginally and felt an intact "bag of waters" and the umbilical cord as the presenting part. He says his heart about stopped. If the cord precedes the baby, as soon as it is compressed by the presenting part, usually after the bag of waters breaks, circulation to the baby is cut off. 2 nights previously a Mom had arrived with an arm and cord hanging out. That baby had an ominously low heart rate, and in the 15 minutes it takes us in the middle of the night to get the crew in from home for a C section, the baby delivered vaginally, dead and unable to be resuscitated. So now along comes almost an identical situation, but this baby still had a great heart rate. So the team rushed in again, did the C section and the baby and Mom are doing great! One terrible tragedy, one splendid success. Have I mentioned before how wonderful I find the Mormon practice of sending their young people out for 2 mission years? It seems to me that for the young people who go to areas like this, it really opens their eyes to how the majority of the world lives, and gives a number of them incentive to continue to help. We currently have 2 young Mormon medical students at the Hospitalito. Both did their 2 "mission" years when they were younger in impoverished countries. Both are very committed to working in impoverished parts of the world when they finish their training. One is going to be an ophthalmologist and hopes to return for months each year to do cataract surgery. The other is going into surgery, finding that to be what is most lacking in impoverished areas. He is also getting a masters in public health to give him direction! (By the way, his Dad, a dentist, is here for a week, pulling teeth.) One of the residents gave the following account of a patient encounter yesterday. It was a little girl, 10 years old. She came in by "bomberos" for a nose bleed. She was bleeding a little, not much. The family was extremely upset. The Dad had passed out on the floor at home when he saw the blood. The Mother kept trying to put a coin on the girl's forehead to stop the bleeding. A crowd of chattering relatives kept milling about, giving advice, asking for IV fluids to build her up since she had lost blood, an injection of vitamins, perhaps? Some antibiotics? Certainly the gringo doctor must be kidding, just apply pressure and use a nose spray? What about the IV? The next door neighbor never even had any medical training and can give IVs, why don't these doctors here give IVs? A whole bevy of anxious relatives were sure that the little girl was on her death bed. She of course was frightened half to death, if not by seeing her own blood, then by her relatives all predicting dire events. It is delightful to watch the young residents patiently, tactfully and adeptly work through the fears and superstitions of people of this very different culture. This family and patient eventually left, smiling and joking. Who knows if they were really convinced that she did not need an IV, or just went home to get their neighbor to give her one? It is the Tzutujil way to agree, not to argue. It is the routine in Santiago to seek care from many different providers, preferably without telling them what the previous provider had said or done. Tonight a world famous volcanologist is going to give us a talk about the volcanoes surrounding us. He has already told us that the original site of the hospitalito and the site of the current refugee settlement are both in the highest risk zones for another mudslide. Our "comite" continues to look for a new permanent site. What a loss and what a cost! "As’ es la vida." That's life. February 22, 2006 |
Donations
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EMAIL FROM KEN WOOD 10/30/05
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Dear Friends of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala,
I wanted to bring you up-to-date about how we are using your donation, to Pueblo a Pueblo Inc. We are working on several fronts: Healthcare: Needless to say K'aslimaal, the local governing body of the Hospitalito has been incredibly busy. The hospitalito in Panabaj remains unusable as it sits in an area that has been declared a mass grave. The first goal was to ensure that the town had uninterrupted 24/7 medical care. With incredible speed, K'aslimaal and the physicians opened up an interim hospitalito and began providing 24/7 medical services within two weeks of the disaster. I heard that it still takes 3 hours traveling through the mud, a few miles to get to the Panabaj facility to transport supplies and equipment back to the interim hospitalito in town. Water and electricity has been a problem but the volunteers, staff and doctors have prevailed. The first surgery has already been performed and the first baby delivered. K'aslimaal made sure that the first-responders, the bomberos (fireman) were all vaccinated for Hepatitus B. Vaccinations flown down by Dr. Gil Mobley were given out to the general public. Consideration was given to vaccinating all the children under 5 in town (4625) for Hepatitis B and A which would cost $189,000, well beyond the scope of what K'aslimaal can do. Financial support and equipment is being supplied to the Puesto de Salud in Tzan Chaj, which is a clinic that has been established of the far side of Panabaj, where USAID is setting up temporary plastic tarp dwellings for the homeless. Some concern has been expressed as these dwellings are barely minimal and they will remove the homeless from site. The fear is that they will become permanent housing, but it appears that this is the best solution given the large number of homeless people and pressing need for housing. This area is too far away from town for people to be treated for routine medical problems, so K'aslimaal is supporting the doctors there and victims needing more than routine care are being referred to the hospitalito. In fact, all victims of the mudslides have been guaranteed free access to medical care at the hospitalito. Lastly, on the medical front, K'aslimaal is providing support to twelve mental health care workers who have been an incredible assistance to survivors and responders as well. K'aslimaal is housing and feeding eleven Cuban physicians who have been assigned to five schools in town where the survivors, who were scattered around town, have been temporarily moved. School vacation has begun and will last until February, freeing up these buildings for temporary housing. The Cuban doctors are providing routine care and monitoring for any disease outbreaks and referring patients for more intensive care at the hospitalito. Food and clothing have poured into the community from several diverse relief agencies. Reports are that the situation has stablized somewhat. At the same time as securing 24/7 medical capacity, K'aslimaal and Pueblo a Pueblo have reached out to address non-medical needs. Housing: Several T'zutujil hospitalito staff members lost everything in the mudslides and we are repairing/replacing homes for them and renting facilities for other staff members who were affected. A special thanks go to these staff members, who in the face of their own losses, continued to devote time to re-establish the interim hospitalito. David Granville, at the Posada wrote Pueblo a Pueblo: Today a young man named Cruz Chivileu Tzina came to ask for help. His story is one of the saddest I have ever heard in my life. His wife gave birth about ten minutes before the mudslide. He does not know if he had a boy or a girl. The mudslide took his house, his wife, newborn baby, son of ten, and the midwife. He escaped with his seven year old daughter. He was catatonic for several days. He is a stone mason. His mother-in-law owns a small piece of property that can accommodate another house for him and his daughter. While there are thousands of people in need of housing, we felt this case rose to the level of a leading and we must respond with a contribution to David to ensure that Cruz can build himself and his daughter a new home. Elementary Schools: Tree of Life lost its school in Panabaj. La Escuela de Autogestion Comunitaria Pronade de Tzanchaj (335 students) sustained serious mudslide damage at. With our support Tree of Life will be repairing the school in Tzanchaj and assisting their Panabaj students with relocation and school supplies. Traditional Clothing: Pueblo a Pueblo is supporting a huipile project that has been started by Susie Granville. As many of you know, indigenous women take great pride in their cultural traditions and as the Rigoberto Menchu Foundation has pointed out, this catastrophe has the capacity to degrade these cultural traditions as people with no resources abandon often expensive handmade clothing for "Ropa Americana". Under the brilliant and sensitive leadership of Susie of the Posada, this all-volunteer project is distributing looms, equipment and threads to T'zutujil women who have lost everything so they can weave and embroider traditional clothing for themselves. Pueblo a Pueblo is also supporting the Cajolya Association of Maya Women Weavers. This is a non-profit organization of indigenous women who are preserving the traditions of backstrap weaving while supporting their families. Several of these women lost their families and homes during the disaster. Our support will help them build homes, replace weaving equipment and supplies so these women can hold onto their cultural values and quickly return to earning a living. Handicapped Children: We are supporting ADISA, a non-profit organization in Santiago that cares for disabled children. Their modest resources modest resources were exhausted during this crisis. We are further working on obtaining anti-convulsive medications for their children, as their supply has run out. Recovery from this disaster is a long-term effort, with reports of 3000-3500 people being temporarily housed in the schools. The major issues of housing and gainful employment will continue for some time. Our overall strategy is to continue to maintain a 24/7 medical facility and to meet niche needs that the larger relief organizations cannot address as they institute structural programming such as mass relocation, construction of temporary housing, potable water, etc. While the decisions about the priorities are always difficult with limited resources in the face of such overwhelming need, we at Pueblo feel comfortable that our partners on site are addressing specific needs which will sustain the victims and help weave them back into the life of the community. We take stewardship of your gifts very seriously and are investing these contributions with oversight and documentation. Many thanks have poured in from the above organizations and individuals. These thanks belong to each of you, the donors, large and small. In the same way, many of you have written, thanking Pueblo a Pueblo for doing this volunteer work. These thanks belong to the people on the ground, in Santiago, who have sustained such losses and are pulling together to help their neighbors. Over 500 people have donated to this effort and we have raised and are disbursing over $100,000 to Santiago. We very much appreciate your continued support. Besides receiving tax-deductible gifts, Pueblo a Pueblo, Inc has also registered with www.igive.com This is an on-line Shopping Mall. You'll find more than 500 stores at the Mall, like Barnes & Noble, JC Penney, Land's End, Expedia, Dell, and the Wall Street Journal. You can purchase a host of services and goods including: computer supplies, travel, hotel accommodations, clothing, toys, flowers and gifts of all kinds. Every purchase you make through www.igive.com helps Pueblo a Pueblo - Guatemala Disaster Relief. As the Holiday season begins, please consider supporting the T'zutujil people, with a gift in honor of a friend or relative. Widen our circle of support by informing others of this opportunity. Thank you again for your support. Sincerely,
Kenneth Wood
President |
Donations
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EMAIL FROM HOSPITALITO 10/15/05
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Email received by Ken Wood of Pueblo a Pueblo from Lyn Dickey, Co-Treasurer of K'aslimaal (the governing committee of the hospitalito).
Dear Ken, I am writing to say thank you for the wire transfers that we have received. My eyes fill with tears when I think of the outpouring of love and assistance that has come to the village of Santiago Atitlán. The money is making a difference and helping the people in so many ways. The members of the Comité have been working non-stop. A kitchen was established in Argentina Sojuel's special education classroom where the hundreds of local rescue workers could get food on breaks before they returned to the horrible work of digging for bodies. Many committee members spent hours helping prepare food for the workers and refugees. The price of basic food has escalated in town as the supply dwindles, but with your help we continue. We ordered medicines that are arriving by helicopter, as all roads had been closed. Bedding, blankets and clothing were purchased for those in the shelters. Everyone...I mean Everyone, was wet, cold and hungry. Concern is for the mental health of the survivors and homeless. Many are unable to sleep or eat, and loud sounds are frightening, as it is a reminder of the sliding mud, rocks and trees. We have located 12 mental health specialists who will be arriving today to begin work immediately. I will give you updates as things unfold. This money has made this terrible work possible and so much easier. Tell everyone THANK YOU! Lyn |
Donations
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UPDATE FROM ANDREW WEEKS IN
SANTIAGO ATITLÁN, GUATEMALA
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(10/11/05) The situation here in Santiago Atitlán continues to be very bad. Several days of continuous rain caused landslides to
come down off the volcano and buried part of Panabaj, a very poor
"suburb" of the town on the night of the 4th Oct.
Many were killed, we may never know how many, including a lovely family I
was visiting only a few days before —
Dolores, the mother, a widow and all her children all gone ; we do not
even have their bodies so far. There are
around 4000 homeless being housed in schools, churches and private homes of
relatives and friends thoughout the
town. The roads are opening up and helicopters are bringing in supplies but
the situation for the homeless will
continue to be grim, and there is now plenty of infighting amongst the
various factions in town and the outside
agencies. The day before yesterday I was filming from a boat on the lake
and we found the body of a young boy. He
had been washed down into the lake by the mudslide and had just floated to
the surface. At least he will receive a
burial and relatives may be able to identify him.
is the place for donations... I favour puebloapueblo because as far as I know it is the only organisation that is specific to here and I know the people involved... I know who is controlling the money and that nothing is taken out for admin. Also it will not be used solely for the hospital, important though that is. The money will come directly here and be used and not, as is the case with many ngo's (not to mention govt aid), get siphoned off en route... Being close up to the situation here is really instructive in terms of what happens in disaster situations. |
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Donations
RESPONSE TO DONATION
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Thank you very much for your donation to the Santiago Atitlan Disaster Relief Fund at Pueblo a Pueblo. I personally cannot thank you enough. The tragedy in Santiago has deeply touched all of us. Your money will be forwarded to the Comite K'aslimaal, the organization that has resurrected the hospitalito. The doctors and governing board of the hospitalito will make determination of how best to utilize your donation as this calamity unfolds. Since the mudslides hit at 2 am, those who were not buried, escaped with nothing. Right now the needs are very basic — food, clothing, shovels, pots and pans, and potable water.
With this email we would like to acknowledge your gift .... You have received no goods or services in consideration of your charitable contribution and are entitled to a tax deduction under IRS regulations. On behalf of the T'zutujil Maya people of Santiago.....THANK YOU! We will try to keep you updated via our website with the latest information. Thank you again.
Kenneth Wood
tel: (202) 302-0622 |
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FROM KARIN GEZELIUS BERGSTRESSER IN
SANTIAGO ATITLÁN, GUATEMALA
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(10/10/05) Days after several mudslides from volcano Tolimán washed
away populated areas of Santiago Atitlán, expressions of grief and despair
are engrained in the faces of the people. Many cry open on the streets in
center of town as they are waiting to identify their loved ones. Every now
and then a vehicle arrives with bodies that have been recovered from the
mud. They are carried into the municipal building for a quick
identification
before they are placed in roughly hewn wooden caskets. Men, with faces
covered by protective masks, carry the coffins on their shoulders up the
long hill for mass funerals at the cemetery.
Seventy-two hours after the first mudslide hit this Maya Tz'utujiil town of 37,000 inhabitants in the early morning of October 5th the death count is 71, but the death toll is bound to rise as the mud lies several hundred feet wide and fifteen feet deep at places. The first mudslide happened close to the soccer-field. It took houses and people down the steep cliffs and relentlessly continued its path through homesteads, coffee-plantations and cornfields. People were wading through knee-deep mud to retrieve what still could be saved. Panabaj, a village a couple of kilometers south of the center of Santiago Atitlán, was in the path of the biggest mudslide. The landscape invoked eerie feelings as the debris from the volcano replaced all familiar features. The roads are covered with mud. People are using wooden posts, sheet metal and whatever is at hand to build temporary walkways in order to avoid wading through the mud that at places is chest-deep. Right after the slide, people moved slowly forward by holding on to ropes. Telephone posts are broken and cracked, a two-story rock-house is not to be seen anymore, the simple houses have been washed away or in the lucky cases, are still standing but full of mud. Instead, the landscape is transformed into a flat vastness of mud, sand and water. Huge boulders and tree trunks have rolled off the volcano and once the water recedes, the clean-up process will be immense. The earth smells of death, of decomposing bodies, not yet retrieved. Several thousand of local men are digging through the mud, looking for bodies, but the work is overwhelming with only a hoe and a spade at hand. A compound, with 14 family members that laid in path of the mudslide, is eliminated; here a widow died along with her ten children, one grand-child, her brother, his wife and their child. The only trace left is some cooking utensils and a chest with the traditional clothes. Desperate relatives have been waiting for days for their bodies to be found. In other cases, families have been decimated with half its members gone, young children have lost their parents. The caskets come in all sizes. The ones that only lost their homes consider themselves lucky. Juan Tacaxoy is a volunteer fire fighter from Panabaj. He woke up around midnight as a two-meter deep river of mud came towards his home. "I started to scream to by brothers," he recalls, but they could do little as the house was surrounded by mud. "About ten minutes later came the water and sand, and a little later the rocks and tree trunks." He never had time to get scared, as adrenaline pumped in his body. He was among the lucky ones. Although his house is gone, all 30 members in his family compound survived. "It was a miracle, but the children are traumatized," said Juan Tacaxoy. A fellow fire-fighter encourages him to sing to his children, to hold them and laugh with them. He has moved his family to one of 15 shelters that have been put up in schools, churches and government building in the center of Santiago Atitlán. Panabaj, meanwhile, is a ghost town. The population has been evacuated by boats, as the roads were impassible for the first days. Some men have stayed behind to look after the remainder of their belongings as looters are quick to move into the empty homes. In town, soup-kitchens are feeding the homeless and help has poured into the neighboring towns of San Pedro la Laguna, San Lucas Tolimán and Sololá. The government is still to show its presence. "The people are crying. We are cooking for children with no shoes. In some cases the fathers and mothers of a family have totally disappeared," said Betty Sojuel, who usually is the head of one of Santiago's two banks. But as the bank remains closed, she takes part of the town's effort to help its most destitute people. People are in desperate need of food and clothes. As many of the roads are down in Guatemala, and Santiago Atitlán was cut off from the outside world for several days, food and medicine are scarce. Several shops are closed as supplies are dwindling and the mayor of Santiago Atitlán, Diego Esquina Mendoza, asked the pharmacies to remain open. Gasoline is running scarce and every now and then a shipment comes in from across the lake. The municipality of Sanitago Atitlán is looking for outside help to rebuild the homes of a people that had little to begin with, but now has lost everything. "We need machinery to clean up the area. We are asking foreign institutions to help us buy a tractor," said Diego Chichom, acting mayor of Sanitago Atitlán. "We need money to build the village again. We need money for buying land to the people." The hospital in Panabaj is closed for now as mud stands high along its walls and all access roads are down. Instead all medical staff is busy around the clock at the Centro de Salud in the town center. Some patients have been transferred to the National Hospital in Sololá. The local people are pouring out their support — cooking, digging, sharing their homes and their clothes with their less fortunate fellow villagers. It will take a long time for the town to recover and for life the get back to normal. "All of us have to share the pain," said Diego Esquina. |
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FROM ANDREW WEEKS IN
SANTIAGO ATITLÁN, GUATEMALA
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(10/8/05) It is terrible here - many landslides - one by the football field and many
more in Panabaj - which is decimated, many dead incl my friends - we hear
all the family - I was just with them the other day ...around a hundred
bodies so far and many more expected - urgent needs for help esp food and
water and...etc. no getting in or out at present.
We simply do not know how may bodies there will be - the mud is 4-5 ft deep in places covering many houses in Panabaj. The immediate need is for water and food for the thousands of evacuees who are in schools and churches and with family or friends this is clearly going to be a long term issue too. We have doctors but at present the injured have been dealt with, there are only the dead to be recovered. Yesterday the information PA set up at the muni was constantly appealing for wood and coffins and also thanking helpers from the surrounding area. No outside help has arrived so far only a helicopter load of media yesterday. although as I writes a small helicopter has brought in a small amount of supplies. The town is very resilient and resourceful and huge amounts of effort is being put in, but at present it is really being thrown onto its own resources. The hospital, which is in the devastated area, is being cleared and equipment may be brought into town. The town is full of rumours that there are more storms on the way and it looks as if there are more mud slips above the town and on the volcano opposite just waiting to go. Puebloapueblo.org has a donation facility and pictures and story. |
updates - photos #1 - photos #2 - photos #3