This document is archived material. For similar content on this website which is more recent, please click here.

Last revised Feb. 26, 1999

by Lois Ephraim Russ Reid Company Hurricane Mitch has whipped through Honduras, wreaking a path of devastation that has resulted in an enormous loss of human life and property. Preliminary reports are 7,000 dead with another 12,000 reported missing. Approximately 1.9 million people or about 40% of the population has been evacuated from their homes		CLICK FOR MORE . . . PHOTOS | EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS! FLOOD DESTRUCTION ALONG THE CHULOTECA RIVER -- A few solitary planks are all that remain of this house in the Las Brisas neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

All World Vision Area Development Projects (ADPs) were affected in one way or another. At this moment, World Vision staff are trying to reach many of the communities which are inaccessible. As the floodwaters recede and bodies continue to surface from the muck, there is a well-founded fear that epidemics of disease will soon erupt.

The first phone call today from the US-funded Yoro project indicated that staff are seeing the first outbreaks of cholera, malaria and dengue fever. We can expect more of the same throughout the country.

World Vision journalists John McCoy, Jon Warren and Eric Browne will be flying by helicopter to Tierra Nueva, a US-funded project, to cover the delivery of food to affected families tomorrow morning. This will be the first visit by World Vision staff to this project since the hurricane hit. Paul Diederich, Ellen Kupp, Mark McKnight and I will hopefully go the local hospital and visit young children who have been orphaned by the hurricane. On Sunday, we plan to board a C-130 loaded with food and fly down to the Chuloteca region where most of the ADP deaths have been reported.

Today, we stayed in the Tegucigalpa region and surveyed the damage along the Chuloteca River. In a matter of hours, entire neighborhoods were completely wiped out by hurricane-related floods and landslides. It is impossible to get an accurate figure on how many families lost their homes or how many people died in this community called Las Brisas.

As we tromped through the muddy precipice that overlooked the swollen river, our eyes caught the figure of a little girl leaning against the frame of a wooden bed. She stood outside the remains of what used to be her house, clinging to one of the few family possessions that survived the deluge. A few feet away was her barefoot mother, shoveling away mud with a shovel she had found in the debris. We carefully made our way through the rubble where the courageous woman willingly talked to us.

Miriam Suyopa Gomez simply told us she has lost everything. On the day the hurricane hit with full force, she stayed in her house with her two young children in her arms. Like many here, she didn't want to leave her home or her tiny piece of land. It was all she had. But when the waters reached her knees, she knew she had to flee.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER LEANING AGAINST REMAINS OF HOUSE--Although she has lost everything, Miriam Suyopa Gomez is doing everything she can to rebuild a life for her 7-year-old daughter, Ami Lorena.

"It was horrible," Miriam told me, wiping her eyes. "All I could think of is what would have happened if my children would have died. It was all I could think of...."

With only minutes to spare, she reached the safety of the higher lands, and watched as her home was swept away. Now she is trying to put the pieces of her shattered life back together again.

Hours after the worst of the storm passed, she began fishing pieces of pine wood, aluminum and furniture out of the river -- grasping for anything she could use to rebuild her home and life. She even found a wool blanket in the water and hung it over a fire to dry. It is the only blanket the family owns.

Her right eye is red and swollen -- a sure sign of conjunctivitis. She said she picked up the highly contagious disease at the shelter where she is sleeping with the children. Many of the hundreds of the families sleeping at the public shelter are falling ill and disease is spreading like wildfire. The shelter is not a cozy, comfortable place; it is a basic building a few miles away that offers a hard floor to sleep and a sheet to cover the children.

Miriam is very worried about her daughter, Ami Lorena. The pretty girl is very shy and still seems a bit traumatized by the family's close call with death. We soon learn that she has been sick with diseases related to the contamination of the city's water supply.

"Ami Lorena has fever, diarrhea and vomiting but I have no money to buy any food or medicine for her."

Miriam proudly told me that she had fished a pot out of the river and hopes to use it to make and sell tortillas -- the only hope she has of making some money. I ask her if she prays and she quickly nods yes. And I know she means it.

"I am praying that God will provide for my children and that he will help me have a house again."

A brother-in-law pounds nails into the pine boards Miriam has found and together they are putting up a structure to shelter the family. The sun was setting and Miriam made a small fire from rubber cables she found lying in the rubble. She has a long way to go before she can call this place home again.

As we said goodbye, we promised we'd come back for a visit. And we'd bring a pair of shoes for Miriam.