Gone with the rain: 130 dead in El Salvador (Feature)

By Juan Jose Dalton Nov 9, 2009, 19:26 GMT

   San Salvador - The sky above Salvadoran capital El Salvador appeared clear Tuesday: a radiant sun shone to dry the remnants of a weekend of weather chaos that changed whole landscapes.

Police chief Carlos Ascensio confirmed the deaths of 130 people as heavy rains - which came amid a cold front and the remainders of Hurricane Ida - set off mudslides and sent rivers over their banks.

The number of dead could continue to rise. Civil protection officials were busy looking for survivors, and 40 people were still officially regarded as missing.

'Whole hamlets have been wiped off the map in the province of San Vicente,' Medardo Hernandez, the mayor of the town of San Vicente, told the German Press Agency dpa.

The outskirts of the town suffered heavy damage, as did the provinces of La Libertad, San Salvador, Cuscatlan, La Paz and Usulutan, in central El Salvador.

There was no immediate evaluation of the damage, pending an evaluating mission from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

However, it was already quite clear that much of El Salvador was a disaster area. The Panamericana road - the small Central American country's main road, crossing from east to west - looked like the site of bombing.

More mudslides were threatening.

'It is a very major risk to drive on these roads, but people have to go to work and go to places, it's inevitable,' said the driver of a medium-distance bus.

Employees of the Ministry of Public Works were chopping fallen trees and removing collapsed posts. Locals were cooperating too, although in many areas it was impossible to remove the huge debris without the help of mechanical shovels.

The damage was evident: television footage from the air showed the magnitude of the disaster. Mountains and volcanoes showed huge rifts that resulted from the mudslides, and new rivers were forged by the very heavy rain.

   In the town of Verapaz, in San Vicente, mudslides from the Chinchontepec volcano wiped whole outlying hamlets off the map. The town centre was full of mud and rocks.

According to the authorities, 1,570 homes suffered serious damage and 209 others were completely destroyed. Hundreds of trees were pulled out, as well as scores of powerline posts.

As many as 108 mudslides swept through mountain areas, and 87 shelters were set up to hold about 9,000 people, officials said.

   Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes declared a state of emergency and promised rapid financial aid to those affected.

Ida's tumultuous rain also caused damage in Mexico and Cuba. Ida made landfall on Nicaragua Thursday as a Category I hurricane on the five-level Saffir Simpson hurricane scale. It quickly became a tropical depression, but regained strength Saturday over the warm waters of the Caribbean.

Ida was the ninth storm of the season, which officially lasts until the end of November.

This year had passed with no significant damage across the region so far until the arrival of Ida, the first hurricane to make landfall in the Caribbean this season.

   Last year, hurricanes caused severe damage, especially in Cuba and Haiti.