There is something rather strange about the way that Rio Suchiate flows past the small riverside communities in Tecun Uman near Guatemala’s Pacific coast. The river twists suddenly and makes a deep inroad into a crumbled and deserted bank.
“There was a village here. That’s where we lived. Now there is just the river,” says Victoria Isabel Garcia.
Victoria’s home in the community of Las Delicias disappeared during October last year as Hurricane Stan swept across Guatemala on its way towards Mexico.
Hurricane Stan had already caused considerable damage in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and Guatemala suffered particularly severe damage.
In Guatemala, torrential rains from Hurricane Stan caused extensive flooding and landslides, which killed almost 1,500 people and affected a further 1.5 million.
For those living in Las Delicias, there was not much time to act as the raging torrents of water from Rio Suchiate burst through its banks. Over a thousand families in Las Delicias lost their houses in a matter of hours.
“The river started to move closer at eight in the morning. By one o’clock it took over,” Victoria whispers, her eyes downcast, carrying her baby boy Wilmer in her arms. When the hurricane struck, she was seven month pregnant.
“My husband was away working on a coffee plantation. I grabbed my daughter Sandri, who was one year old at the time, and ran. We just managed to escape, but we couldn’t save anything.”
Her husband, Emeterio Velasquez, feared the worst as he rushed home and saw the river surging violently over the spot where his home used to stand. His relief was immeasurable when neighbours told him that Victoria had run to the local church, which was safe as it stood high on a hill overlooking the village.
The family received emergency aid from the Guatemalan Red Cross, but all their belongings were washed away and Emeterio admits that he misses their electrical appliances in particular.
“We are poor people and worked hard in order to achieve what we had. Now we can’t afford anything like that.”
Eleven months on and the family is still living in a temporary shelter in a camp close to their lost community with 300 other families. Despite hot and cramped conditions, they are reluctant to move elsewhere.
“We have just recently been offered a new plot by the authorities. It is a little further away from the river, but we are still afraid to move. When we hear the word hurricane, we always remember what happened a year ago.”
Their fear is triggered by the fact that the Central American hurricane seasons are intensifying. Last year, 2005, was a record-breaking season, with 26 tropical storms and 14 hurricanes devastating the region. Meteorologists are not expecting 2006 to be as destructive as 2005, but in the longer term, climate change is expected to increase the incidence and severity of weather-related natural disasters.
“It is true that storms seem to strike more often than before. And the river flows in a different way too. It can swell more easily because the trees we had here sheltering us have been cut down or washed away,” says Emeterio.
The Guatemalan Red Cross is ready and prepared to assist the victims of the 2006 hurricane season. Just as importantly, its members and volunteers are now focused on creating ways to reduce the damage of future hurricanes.
Disaster preparedness programmes have been started not only in Guatemala, but across the whole of Central America with the aim that the communities themselves take as much responsibility for the practical work as possible.
This disaster preparedness also applies to those displaced in the community of Las Delicias. Community members work in groups to plan and take responsibility for first aid, emergency food reserves and the potential evacuation of their community.
“Before Hurricane Stan, we weren’t aware of such issues. Now we have those belongings we want to save ready, and we have some provisions. It’s not much, but it’s everything that is valuable to us,” says Victoria.