Massive Flooding Afflicts Central America

by Paul Jeffrey

Honduras/Nicaragua: Hurricane Michelle has caused massive flooding in Honduras and Nicaragua, almost three years to the day after Hurricane Mitch ravaged the region. In some parts of Central America, the suffering is worse now than it was with Hurricane Mitch.

"The situation is critical, not even Mitch punished us this bad," the mayor of the Honduran town of Yoro, Erlinda Martinez, told the daily newspaper, El Heraldo. "All the rivers have gone over their banks. We have nowhere to escape to. In most villages, there is no food, drinking water, or electricity. The government has not responded quickly to attend to the needs of the victims. We don't know what to do."

Close to Yoro, a 170-meter bridge over the Cuyamapa River washed away late on October 31. The bridge had not even needed minor repairs following Hurricane Mitch, emergency officials said. Hurricane Mitch hit Central America at the end of October 1998, killing more than 9,000 people and causing billions of dollars in damages.

At least four people are dead and 19 missing as a result of the current flooding. More than 115,000 people have had to flee their homes. The toll of the floods is expected to rise dramatically in coming days as reports arrive from isolated areas.

Ironically, farmers in some of the flooded areas have been struggling for months with a chronic drought. And now, after the drought, too much rain. "This is starting to feel like a series of Biblical plagues," said Maynor Ceron, the emergency services coordinator for the Christian Commission for Development (CCD) in Honduras.

CCD is a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT), the Geneva-based alliance of church-sponsored agencies responding to disasters. Like other ACT members in the region, its personnel in affected regions are working with government and military officials to rescue those endangered by the rising water.

According to Moises Moraga, director of Christian Medical Action, an ACT member in Nicaragua, accurate information is still hard to come by. He said the heavy rains left many villages in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region of Nicaragua with out any form of communication.

He cited the case of some 300 people trapped on a small hill that has become an island between the Leymus and Kukalaya rivers. He said they are surrounded by several kilometers of swift-moving water that so far no one has been able to cross successfully because of a lack of boats. He said AMC's only vehicle in the region is trapped in Puerto Cabezas, the regional capital.

Moraga said that flooding is a common occurrence in the region at this time of year, but this year's rains have created a situation much worse than normal. He said that many of the affected villagers have arrived in the zone in recent years either as agricultural pioneers from the highlands or under a government program to resettle former combatants from the country's civil war. As such, he explained, they have little experience with serious flooding and are thus more vulnerable to the effects of Michelle.

Moraga said AMC staff in Managua were busy collecting food, drinking water, clothing, plastic sheeting, flashlights, medicine, fuel, and sheet roofing, and would transport the relief material to the affected zone as soon as possible.

The Nicaraguan Council of Evangelical Churches (CEPAD), another ACT member, also works in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region. Executive Director Damaris Albuquerque said communication was difficult, but that CEPAD officials in Managua were in radio contact with their staff along the Coco River, which separates Nicaragua from Honduras. CEPAD staff are helping coordinate rescue operations in Miskito indigenous villages in the area, where the government has a minimal presence.

Ironically, both AMC and CEPAD continue working with communities in the area which have been hard hit by a lingering drought. "The climatological situation in the area is pretty chaotic," admitted Moraga.

CCD's Ceron said the flooding is the first major test in Honduras of local community-based disaster preparedness training efforts carried out in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Ceron said that CCD was supporting government rescue operations where it could. "They are the ones with the resources to rescue people," he said. "We are standing by to assist with food aid as soon as we can, and with longer-term assistance in rehabilitating housing and agricultural production."

ACT members in the region have been heavily involved in helping small farmers survive a five-year drought that turned even more deadly this year. Over a hundred people have died of starvation this year in Central America because of the drought.

The situation is exacerbated by a huge drop in the price of coffee, largely the result of increased production in Vietnam, today the world's second largest producer of coffee. The glut has pushed prices so low that coffee producers cannot earn enough to stay solvent. The price of a hundred-pound bag of coffee, which has sold for as high as $350 in recent years, today barely brings in $50. Yet it costs a grower more than $80 to produce those hundred pounds of coffee beans. Many coffee growers -- especially smaller, less efficient farms -- have shut down operations rather than lose money. Central American governments, concerned about their biggest source of hard currency, have tried tempting growers with subsidies, but the programs have had little impact.

That means peasant farmers, who usually spend two or three months each year harvesting coffee in the cool highlands, have no way of earning cash. They only earned $3 a day picking coffee in the good times, but that income got them through bad crop years. This year, they are caught in a double bind. There is no food to harvest. And there is no money to buy food in the stores. The result is a famine.

And now there is too much rain.

How to Help through UMCOR

People interested in assisting in recovery efforts may designate donations for "Hurricanes 2001," UMCOR Advance #982350-4. Checks may be dropped in church collection plates or mailed directly to UMCOR at 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donations can be made by calling 1-800-554-8583.

November 2, 2001

Source: Action by Churches Together. ACT is a worldwide network of churches and related agencies meeting human need through coordinated emergency response. UMCOR is a member of ACT.

Paul Jeffrey is a United Methodist missionary serving in Central America along with his wife, the Rev. Lyda Pierce, who is also a GBGM missionary. Appointed to the Christian Commission for Development (CCD) in Honduras, Paul writes about the region for church-based media in the north.