CIS Communities

Thank you to all who have donated so far, we are using the monetary donations to buy
food staples and send them to affected communities.  The pick-up just took off to Comasagua with some of the food staples.  They took 100 family food staples packets, each with 4 pounds of beans, 4 pounds of corn flower, 

2 pounds of rice, 2 pounds of sugar, and 1 pound of salt.  In addition for the shelter where over 500 people are staying we sent, 200 pounds of beans, 100 pounds of sugar, 100 pounds of rice, 100 pounds of corn flower, 5 bags of coffee, 1 sack of women cloths, 1 sack of men’s cloths, and 1 sack of children’s cloths (going to Arcoiris, a community that the CIS helped resettle after the 2001 earthquake).  The road to get into Comasagua, as so many of the highways all over the country, is full of landslides.  They will Photo by Carl Malischke

meet up with the mayor’s office on the highway, and they will then take everything into Comasagua.

The community of San Luis Los Ranchos is still completely cut off.  There are two pregnant women who are very close to giving birth (one who is high risk).  Delmy, one of the CIS’s grassroots organizers, worked with community members for over 12 hours yesterday shoveling mud to try and clear a path to get the pregnant woman to the town.  Ten of the family kits are going to San Luis Los Ranchos.   The rest will be distributed by the mayor to the most needed areas.

Country Update

According to the Prensa Grafica the statistics are the following:

• 150,000 people affected
• 267 shelters
• 32,243 people evacuated
• 38 dead
• 8 bridges closed
• 21,567 people in shelters
• 80 communities flooded
• 28 communities without electricity
• 18,445 homes flooded
• 2,935 basic grain crops affected

Photo By Carl Malischke

President Funes addressed the Nation last night.  He emphasized the severity of the rains of the past week.  We have had more rain in the last week than in the last 2 months.  In some parts of the country we have had 3 times as much rain as normally falls in one month of the rainy season.  The crisis is worse than hurricane Mitch and the storms Ida and Agatha.

Donations Needed

Unfortunately they have predicted another storm to hit today, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  The National State of Emergency continues, and the need for food staples and dry cloths is huge.  Any help you can give, monetary or food and cloth donations is greatly appreciated.

Photo By Carl Malischke

News In English

Interview with Maggie Van Vogt of UNES

Huffington Post

BBC

Vulnerability and inequalities in the Tropical Storm

New York Times

Photos from Ahuachapan

Photos from El Faro