International Federation, Venezuela 1999

Chapter 4 - summary
Trapped in the gap – post-landslide Venezuela

From 15-16 December 1999, two years of rain inundated Venezuela's mountainous coastline in two days. Walls of mud and boulders 20 metres high swept whole neighbourhoods into the sea. In Vargas state, landslides wiped out 5,500 homes, damaged another 25,000, and wrecked infrastructure. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people were affected. Up to 30,000 died. The United Nations (UN) estimated economic damage at US$ 1.9 billion.

Venezuela's worst disaster for century has left many questions unanswered. Could the disaster's effects have been mitigated? What is the right balance between 'hardware' and 'software' solutions? How can the 'gap' between relief and longer-term recovery be managed?
Floods and landslides are not new here. In 1951, a similar rainstorm hit the same area. It was less populated then, so fewer lives were lost. While 1999's rains and mudslides were another extreme natural event, human factors exacerbated their impact. Vargas is heavily urbanized, with ten times the average national population density. Fishing and tourism attracted jobseekers from all over Venezuela. In this fast-developing region, people built with little control. Shanties sprang up on slippery slopes and near ravines, in harm's way.

Ordinary Venezuelans responded generously to the emergency. Humanitarian agencies arrived from across the world and warehouses overflowed with food aid. The military evacuated 70,000 people. Another 110,000 left by their own means.

Eight months after the disaster, 33,000 homeless people still lived in shelters or barracks. Their living conditions were appalling; their prospects for the future, uncertain. Emergency food aid had ended, yet they had no jobs, no homes, no plans and few options. They had fallen into the 'gap'.

UNICEF officer Carlos Luis Rivero says, "The government gives priority to road rehabilitation and less to social issues." In June 2000, Rivero coordinated a survey among 37 makeshift shelters. Some had one toilet for 120 individuals. Women had to carry metal pipes for protection. Most were living in extreme poverty. Poor conditions in shelters and accumulated uncertainty over the future were linked with rising rates of rape, domestic violence, child prostitution and drug abuse.

In January 2000, government-appointed experts began designing a masterplan to rebuild Vargas as a resort. But their slick computer graphics of palm-clad promenades clash with the needs of the poorest. "Noticeably absent from these plans are solutions for the slum dwellers," says World Vision's Joel Hirst.

The homeless believe they are entitled to a local solution. "To rebuild Vargas should not entail kicking us out," says Jodely Palacios, a shelter coordinator. Shelter committees merged into the association of damnificados (the disaster-affected), comprising 1,076 families. In September, they held a national meeting to voice short-term needs, such as improving life in shelters, and long-term needs, such as new homes and jobs.

To decongest Vargas, the government favours relocating the poorest to more rural states. The resettled get a 70-square-metre home, complete with kitchen appliances. But many don't want to leave, however wrecked Vargas is. Their urban way of life is inseparable from the coastal strip and its service industries. To relocate them to inland states is like trying to turn taxi drivers into sheep farmers, says one expert.

President Chavez pledged that not one family would remain in shelters or barracks by December 2000. He kept his promise, but at a price. According to one agency, some families were pressured to move and about 80 percent of those resettled lack jobs, leaving them reliant on government food hand-outs.

Unhappy settlers have staged demonstrations protesting over unemployment in their remote locations. An unknown number of the 5,000 or more resettled families are trickling back to Vargas to rebuild their old homes.

"A minimum delimitation of risk areas is needed quickly because we are rebuilding vulnerability," says a geographer working for the World Bank. But who is there to stop rebuilding the risk? "The ministries, the mayors, the builders and the people, and everybody must help in not reconstructing it," she argues. Recurrent landslides underscore the need for urgent action. In November 2000, torrential rains again lashed the coast, leaving 3,000 homeless.

Both governments and international agencies need to rethink their post-disaster responses, argues UN Development Programme's Andrew Maskrey, "There is a gap: the relief stops…often a year or more goes by between the disaster and reconstruction. People can't wait that long…they begin rebuilding their lives hours after disaster strikes. They aren't interested in relief – they're interested in recovering. That is when people need technical assistance to reduce future risk." But, he adds, "That opportunity is lost because no one is working with them at that time, except to offer relief. Without that assistance, while the national-level planning and programming process drags on, people are already reconstructing the risk of the next disaster."

The period of recovery, which starts just hours or days after the disaster, provides an unrivalled opportunity not merely to rehabilitate what was there before, but to improve on it. However, without consulting disaster-affected people, and without adequate transitional resources, that chance will be squandered.

The Venezuelan government saw disaster response and recovery as a technical exercise. But such a "hardware" only approach means that the people hardest hit by disaster are not consulted when recovery plans are laid. Meanwhile, there is a financial gap in international aid. Relief funds need to be spent within three months, pressuring agencies to pursue short-term projects. Emergency aid has media impact and quick, tangible results – therefore attracting funds rapidly. Later on, long-term recovery projects bring measurable development and lucrative contracts. But transitional aid has less appeal, more complications and therefore attracts less funding.

Maskrey identifies the two key disaster recovery challenges as:

• accelerating local-level reconstruction, in parallel with national level planning, in order to close the 'gap'; and
• injecting risk reduction into all aspects of the recovery process.
  

Risk reduction means not just strengthening physical infrastructure, but emphasizing 'software' measures, such as improving local capacities for disaster management. "If vulnerable communities had had local contingency and risk reduction plans, complemented by early warning capabilities, then much loss of life could have been avoided," argues Maskrey.

Venezuela's ongoing, invisible disaster is this lack of disaster preparedness and risk-aware regulations. Disasters expose and magnify existing structural problems, such as the lack of land-use planning and building controls. According to the Civil Defence, 4 million people (over 17 per cent of Venezuela's population) live in risk-prone areas.

How far can humanitarian agencies go in dealing with such issues – ultimately the host government's responsibility? Arguably, Venezuela has the money to tackle these problems. In 1999, the state-owned oil company announced a US$ 2.1 billion profit. Poverty, however, has spread – 52 per cent of households were below the poverty line in 1999, against 34 per cent in 1990.

At the least, humanitarian organizations should fill the gaps between relief and longer-term reconstruction; between the destitute and authorities; between technical solutions and immediate human needs. That way, agencies can help put people back at the centre of disaster recovery.

Mercedes Sayagues, a freelance writer based in Uruguay, wrote this chapter.