Hurricane Eta slows to tropical storm and dumps two feet of rain in parts of Guatemala. UPDATE: Hurricane Iota Now Predicted to Strike Central America As Category 5 Storm
Aldea Quejá (al-DAY-a kay-HA) was a sleepy little village of some three hundred or so homes, situated along an unimproved dirt track, high in the mountains of Guatemala’s Department of Alta Verapaz. It boasted a small rural elementary school, a soccer field, a Catholic Church and two smaller, storefront evangelical churches… and not much else. Its people are largely campesinos – agricultural workers, who toil on small farms, or workers in small shops and stalls selling local produce and odds and ends.
On Thursday, November 5th, the village of Quejá ceased to exist.
It started raining on Saturday. Not abnormal, it is the rainy season here in Guatemala, and a little two-hour rainstorm in the afternoon is the rule. But this one didn’t stop. In fact, it began to rain harder and harder. For days. Torrents of rain.
By Wednesday the “highway” was more river than road. The three small gentle mountain springs that provided the village with water were raging torrents. And still it rained. Hard.
On Thursday, at about 1 p.m., the mountain above the town all but collapsed. A deadly slurry of hundreds of thousands of tons of mud, rock, trees and water cascaded down on Quejá burying the unfortunate and leaving the rest homeless and many miles from the nearest support.
Rain and Road Washouts Hamper Rescue Efforts
News of the landslide reached the nearest emergency responders, Company 86 of Guatemala’s Volunteer Firefighter Corps (CVB), in San Cristóbal Verapaz , a little later.
On a good day the drive from their little fire station to the village takes well over an hour. Though only about 15 miles road miles away, even the main roads in this part of Guatemala are tortuous, steep and windy. This was not a good day.
Fire Company 86 was forced to abandon their vehicles on the main highway and attempted to reach the village, about 2 miles further, on foot. They ascended a steep, mud-slicked track and slogged through mud sometimes chest deep. Footing was so difficult that they frequently resorted to ropes to haul themselves over – or through – the obstacles. Military units were responding from a second direction. Neither group was able to reach the village before treacherous conditions, darkness and continuing rains forced retreat and a halt for the night.
The rescue effort resumed at 4 a.m. on Friday, reinforced by a group of the Municipal firefighter’s search and rescue team. Slackening rains allowed Company 86 finally reach Quejá about midmorning. The small Guatemalan military unit arrived shortly after.
Rescue Arrives
The first survivors of the landslide were found mostly huddled in one of the few concrete block buildings that had survived. Hungry, tired, wet and cold, they were gathered in small groups and evacuated on foot by the firefighters and soldiers. Children, the aged and the injured were often carried on the backs of the rescuers back down the mountain. Their destination another small village on the highway, Santa Elena, where a temporary refuge was being set up.
Meanwhile, the remaining firefighters began the difficult, and often grim, task of locating any survivors that may have been trapped under the landslide. According to the rescuers, for the first day they still heard screams from children and women for help. There are an estimated 100 people underneath the slide. Tools are in short supply and the mix of mud, stone and trees is described as like digging in cement. Recovery efforts will continue but with every hour the chance of rescue dims. Continuing landslides from the mountain above makes it very dangerous work.
It is unlikely that the people of Aldea Quejá will ever be able to return to the village where they made their lives. It is likely to be designated a national cemetery and the residents, mostly the poorest of the poor will have to seek lives elsewhere.
Scenes repeated all over Guatemala
Some 50 miles to the northwest lies Aldea Chabaj. A very similar mountain village in the Department of Huehuetenango, it too has suffered a major landslide. With similar tragic results.
Suffering the same infrastructure problems as Alta Verapaz, this slide is at nearly 10,000 feet in the high mountains. Walter Gomez, commander of Huhuetenango’s 17 Company CVB firefighters says the main highway into the area is blocked by road collapse and multiple tractor trailers. This is preventing search and rescue teams from other departments coming to aid the few resources under his command. Villages in Huehuetenango – Poxlac, Las Brisas 1 and 2, San Carlos and Chibal – had to wait many hours before these resources began to arrive.
What Goes Up Must come down: Flooding in the lowlands
The Department of Izabal, on the east coast of Guatemala is perhaps the hardest hit. Not only did they get the brunt of the storm, but all the water that fell in the mountains will drain to this area. Widespread catastrophic flooding has stranded many communities, washed out bridges and roadways and submerged whole towns. Puerto Barrios, Guatemala’s only gulf coast seaport, is not only flooded, but is cut off from the rest of the country. This will severely limit the availability of supplies and foodstuffs that normally flow through the port. Most of the bridges on the highway from Puerto Barrios to Guatemala city have failed.
Petén, home of the most famous Maya ruins, suffers a similar fate. Petén is the largest of Guatemala’s Departments, but also has the fewest emergency services. Zacapa and Chiquimula, near the Honduran border, have suffered severe flooding and bridge failures as well.
Hurricane Eta is a long term disaster.
Eta’s damage goes far beyond its immediate effects on the people and structures currently involved. The storm also destroyed the current crops on which the country, particularly the poor, depend. The largest part of the rural population are subsistence farmers or agricultural workers. Many will now be not only homeless, but without food and without income to rebuild.
AMEDICAusa and Hurricane Eta.
First, our staff and volunteers are safe. We are all currently on the pacific side of Guatemala or in Guatemala City where the storm was not nearly so bad. We will continue to operate with as little risk to our personnel as is possible.
Our plan is this, in order of priority and immediate need:
- Continue to support the emergency services / firefighters during emergency operations. We have a very large airlift of equipment and supplies ready to fly as soon as the Air Force gives us the word. Our partners The REDS Team delivered another airlift to Guatemala today. We remain in contact with the fire companies and commanders in the field to assess and fulfill immediate needs.
- Support shelters housing and feeding those who have lost their homes to the storm.
- Support efforts to aid the children and their education long term.
This is a rapidly developing situation, but there is a lot to do both in the short term and long term. We would greatly appreciate whatever support you can give us, particularly cash donations.
UPDATE: Hurricane IOTA
Hurricane Iota is now approaching Central America and is poised to strike as recovery efforts from Eta are just beginning.
The National Hurricane Center has updated Iota’s strength to a Category 5 Hurricane. It will continue to strengthen until it makes landfall tonight. While this is a wind speed measurement, it correlates strongly with both the size and rainfall totals expected with the storm. Its path is also expected to slowly cross Central America, rather than swinging back into the Atlantic as did Eta. This will exacerbate the disaster following Eta and may greatly widen the area of destruction in Guatemala. Iota’s arrival will be two weeks to the day after Eta.
I will give a donation Friday when I get paid. I am one of the fortunate ones to hava an essential healthcare job, and my heart goes out to those in harms way and give thanks to all the heroes helping.
Thank you so much, Elaine. We very much appreciate your gift, as well as what you do back home.