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COLLECTION
IN FAVOUR OF THE VICTIMS
OF THE EARTHQUAKE IN SALVADOR
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20/01/2001
The first help to the victims of the earthquake in the area of Armenia
(district of Sonsonate):
6 tons of relief aid.
Report of Jaime Aguilar. |
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 "On Sunday the 20th of January, we delivered 6 tons of relief aid (rice, beans, corn, bread, hygienic material, clothes, drinking water and some toys for the children) collected by the Community of Sant'Egidio of San Salvador, in the week following the earthquake. This relief aid was delivered directly to the families: many, with tears in their eyes, told us: "God didn't forget about us!", "You were the only ones who came to visit us!""
"During the journey, we managed to pass through the places struck by the earthquake. The streets which were buried by the landslides, have only recently become passable for vehicles. We went to one of the most stricken areas, Armenia, in the district of Sonsonate, where 23 people died and where the despair and the needs of the people are enormous. First we visited the town of "Las Brisas", and going door to door, brought a package for every family. We then went to another village, some hundreds of meters down the hill, where we were surrounded by crowds of people hoping to get some food. We distributed everything we had until the truck was emptied, but we managed to give everybody something to eat."
 "How the children manage to live in this zone impresses us all: they are the most vulnerable and there are so many of them (about 200 in "Las Brisas" and some hundreds of others in the neighboring rural areas we visited). They are defenseless, suffer a lot and are very afraid. Ever, a 4 year old child who saw his house collapse, cries and says: "In a week there will be another earthquake" and to explain it better, he takes a plastic toy, crushes it violently and shows it to us so that we can see what happened to his house".
"The situation of these children is uncertain: they have nothing to eat, many of them are undernourished. They neither cry nor laugh, but they stare into space and their faces reflect the pain and the hardship of poverty, increased by the earthquake. There is no way of washing every day, there is just one well for the whole area. To this we must add that in the last few days it has been very cold, unbearably so during the night. The many epidemics such as respiratory diseases, diarrhea and even a case of cholera, which have inevitably appeared, have especially stricken the children."
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