From Nicaragua, STEPHEN MARKS reports on the aftermath of the tsunami that devastated the country's Pacific coast.
El Transito was a small fishing village on the coast. We had recently been there for a Sunday afternoon swim; people fished in the surf, and small children played on the beach and in the water. The houses and streets started right on the beach and went back for some 300 metres.
I returned to the village this week to find that it was now a pile of rubble. Eighteen of its inhabitants, most of them small children, are now dead, killed in a few seconds by a tidal wave that devastated much of the western Nicaraguan seaboard on the evening of September 1.
El Transito and dozens of other coastal villages have the appearance of having been bombed. Only by looking at the foundations of the buildings could I locate the spot where we had swum, bought a drink and talked to the children.
The tsunami was unleashed by an earthquake 120 kilometres off the town of Masachapa. The shock waves became a 20-metre wall of water as they swept up the Nicaraguan coast. Reaching up to 600 metres inland, the waves destroyed whole towns, livelihoods and lives.
One hundred and thirty-seven people are confirmed dead, 346 were injured and at least 1138 houses have been destroyed according to figures supplied by Nicaragua's Augusto C. Sandino Foundation (FACS). Many are still missing, presumed drowned. Thirty-seven communities and villages have been damaged and 16,913 people directly affected. Refugee camps have had to be set up on land behind the ruins.
Economic losses still have not been calculated. This is a new blow to people who in the last two decades have suffered earthquake, the full-scale repression of the Somoza dictatorship, the US-backed contra war, droughts, floods, hurricane and volcanic eruption.
Children were the principal victims of the tidal wave. In the community of Las Salinas, for example, 24 of 26 dead were children. Survivors tell of infants being snatched from their arms by the rushing water. People also speak of being trapped in rooms by the rising water and being tangled in trees with refuse and rubble.
Those most affected, after the dead, are inhabitants of small poor communities who barely survive through activities such as fishing and small farming. Fishing people have lost their fishing equipment, boats, storage sheds and coolers. An already extreme poverty has been exacerbated.
Public health was already under strain because of the low priority the government places on health care. In many places, such as at Salinas Grandes, I could see that the water wells were contaminated with human excreta stirred up by the force of the water that also collapsed the pit toilets and open latrines. Cholera is now an even greater danger.
The Nicaraguan people are once again showing their capacity for self-organisation. Local relief committees are playing a key role in receiving and channelling help from diverse social organisations and non-government organisations such as the progressive evangelical churches and FACS.
Solidarity has come from the mass organisations, in particular the descendants of the old Sandinista Defence Committees, now called the Movimiento Communal, as well as unions, women's organisations and the Nicaraguan public in general. The Sandinista Popular Army has also stepped in to
assist where requested. All this is in the midst of a desperate economic crisis and 70% unemployment rate.
The response of these organisations contrasts starkly with that of the UNO government. There was only minimal government relief presence in the five towns I visited.
In Miramar, the only government visitor had been a minister who had come to check his beach house and then just as quickly left. The minister for foreign cooperation has admitted that, given the magnitude of the disaster, the uncertainly of North American aid and the straitjacket imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the government does not have the resources to deal with the emergency.
When Hurricane Joan struck in 1988, the Sandinista government mobilised the nation and provided massive and rapid relief — despite the contra war. This government has left the rebuilding to the NGOs and foreign aid. However, international aid at the government level is so far insufficient.
The Health Ministry has run out of medicines. The government's own fund for emergencies was recently embezzled out of $2 million. The thief, the former vice minister of the presidency, now lives in the US as a US citizen.
The US response has been to offer $25,000 in disaster relief. After the resulting outcry, it loaned $5 million but is still holding back $116 million in promised loans so as to continue putting political pressure on the government.
The ultraright president of the Parliament, Alfredo Cesar, even turned the disaster to political advantage in a display of opportunism worthy of Somoza. When FSLN and UNO moderates of the centre group left the Assembly to attend to the disaster, Cesar rammed through legislative changes.
The tidal wave has also damaged the ecosystem of the Pacific coast, principally the mangrove swamps, which are a nursery for much of the marine life. It is estimated that 1.2 million turtles recently hatched or about to hatch have been killed. Damage to the mangroves also affects the migration of shrimp larvae from the estuaries to the sea.
In Casares, a Finnish brigadista was among the drowned. She was resting after participating in a reafforestation brigade in Jinotega. That project, organised by the Communal Movement, has now been renamed the Tola Reafforestation Project in her memory.
In the longer term, the people will also need houses, safe water, boats and fishing nets. The Augusto C. Sandino Foundation has launched an international appeal so as to provide emergency relief as well as to assist community organisations in the hard struggle ahead to become independent producers once again.
This disaster exposes the vulnerability to abnormal natural phenomena of poor Third World countries. This poverty has been exacerbated by a US-
backed war which caused the gross domestic product to shrink by one-third in 10 years. A once strong social security system has been wrecked by the policies of neo-liberalism. Factors such as this make natural disaster a catastrophe.