RAIN, RAIN . . . and chill

Today it’s been drizzling and about 59°. It’s been cold and rainy since I got back home in Honduras on Friday night, October 24. In some parts of the country it has been raining more than fifteen days straight.

As a result there have been landslides, flooding, and more. There are more than 33 dead and tens of thousands homeless due to the rains.

Just south of Santa Rosa de Copán there was a great landslide in a village named Suptal, in the municipality of Corquín. About 80 manzanas (138 acres) of land slid down the mountainside and formed a dike in the stream which filled up as a lake behind it. Fortunately, the water flowed out in an orderly manner. If it had broken it could have devastated some towns and villages downstream.

Sunday, in Dulce Nombre, I met the director of a high school in Corquín who had gone to Suptal the day before. He showed Padre Efraín Romero, the pastor, and me the photos he’d taken there. In one there was a house that looked in fairly decent shape. But it had originally been about 30 meters (about 48 feet) higher up the mountain.

People have also been evacuated from a number of towns and villages, especially in Belén Gualcho where there have been earth movements and tremors, because the earth is so saturated by water.

The bishop told me that there are more than 490 people in this area who have had to leave their homes. (I have heard higher figures.) The people are living in shelters, but many have lost almost everything and have to depend on donations. What is a blessing is that many people have provided help. But it has been quite cool here – low sixties and below – but it is a piercing cold due to the rain and the humidity. Some people even are living in higher altitudes where it is even colder.

This doesn’t take into account the long terms effects. People need to rebuild their homes. Also, many people have lost some of their crops, washed away. A friend who works in Belen Gualcho told me that one small farmer told him that only about 40% of his crop remains. The bean crop was already being affected in September by the rains. In addition, a friend told me that some lending agencies are not providing people with loans for next year’s planting.

What this means is that there will be more hunger, more suffering, more need.