In El Salvador, Focus Turns to Refugees

By T. CHRISTIAN MILLER

Jan. 18, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NUEVA SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador —

With the earth finally calm and most of the dead at last laid to rest, Salvadorans turned Wednesday to their country’s growing refugee crisis.

More than 45,000 people remained homeless, with little sign that the government had any concrete plan to rebuild and repopulate towns and neighborhoods leveled by the 7.6 earthquake that ripped through El Salvador on Saturday.

Priests and mayors, refugees and residents bitterly attacked President Francisco Flores, accusing him of an incomplete and haphazard effort to supply food and shelter to those displaced by the quake.

In Nueva San Salvador, the town hit hardest by the quake, Mayor Oscar Ortiz could barely contain his anger as he charged that the government was ignoring residents’ needs.

“Instead of showing sterile, useless and irresponsible leadership, they should come out to the towns and coordinate with the mayors and begin to give us help,” said Oritz, who set up shop beneath a large blue tent in the local refugee camp after Town Hall itself was destroyed by the quake.

Government officials, who faced similar accusations about the slow pace of help after Hurricane Mitch struck in 1998, said Ortiz’s accusations were baseless. They noted that the weekend earthquake had left few communities unscathed, and they blamed the delays on the extent of the damage.

Top government officials also accused Ortiz, a member of El Salvador’s leftist opposition party, of playing politics with the disaster, and they asked for unity in the aftermath of the calamity.

They also noted that the task of finding shelter was complicated by the fact that many of the homeless were refusing to leave the rubble of their homes for fear of losing their few remaining possessions.

“We have done everything possible to get to every place with food and water,” said Herbert Chinchilla, coordinator of the government’s emergency response.

Despite the disarray, Wednesday was El Salvador’s most stable day since the quake: Aftershocks ceased to roil the country, public services were restored in many areas, and the death toll grew only slightly, to 666.

Restaurants and stores were open as normal, the school year appeared ready to begin again, and the government began work on a measure to block price gouging.

But in a country where many mud-and-stick homes had collapsed, the government’s greatest challenge was securing shelter for tens of thousands of people.

By most accounts, that effort was falling short.

In the country’s largest refugee camp, to which about 8,000 members of Nueva San Salvador’s shattered community had fled, most of the tents were homemade affairs. Families as large as 30 people were crammed into flimsy structures of black plastic or sheets strung over sticks and bamboo poles.

While the camp seemed amply supplied with latrines, food and clothing, those inside complained of the noise and dust and wondered when their lives would ever again be normal.

Pablo Montoya, 40, sat listlessly in a 10-by-10-foot cardboard box he had lashed together to make a living space for his seven family members. He had managed to construct the shelter by using cardboard, plastic sheets and tape given to him by neighbors. The government, he said, had given him nothing.

As he spoke, his mother gently rocked to sleep a neighbor’s 22-day-old baby.

“I have no idea what we’re going to do,” said Montoya, whose destroyed home had stood near the Las Colinas neighborhood wiped out by a mudslide. “I’m waiting to see what the government tells us.”

So, too, was Jose Catarino Garcia Alvarado, 62. Using a stick, he drilled at the dry, dusty earth of a soccer field in an effort to set stakes for a makeshift tent. His family sat on the ground behind, numb with shock.

As he described his plight, his voice began to rise until his thin, wiry body began to shake. He grabbed a reporter’s microphone and began screaming into it.

“Our home was destroyed,” he said, sobbing bitterly, his voice a rasp. “I’m asking the national government to help us. I’m asking the president to help us, please.”

Near the edge of the camp, under a patchwork tent of plastic sheets and scraps of cloth, Manuel Ortiz, 49, said the government had provided his family with food and water. But he desperately needed more blankets for his children.

“I have one child who isn’t even 2 months old,” he said, “and the cold at night is making the children shake. They’re sleeping on the ground.”

Not everyone despaired.

Many of those interviewed said they were simply relieved to have a safe place to stay, away from the nightmare of mudslides and collapsing walls. One group of children ran about the field, playing soccer. Another played a local version of the hokeypokey, jumping as an older girl sang.

Maria Flores, 13, gave her 3-year-old sister a bath by pouring water over her head outside the family’s tent. Her home had been destroyed, she said. But she didn’t mind the camp.

“Everything is fine,” she said, “because I feel more safe here.”

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How to Help

These aid agencies are among the many accepting contributions for assistance to victims of the earthquake in Central America.

Catholic Relief Services

P.O. Box 17090

Baltimore, MD 21203-7090

(800) 736-3467

Episcopal Relief and Development

P.O. Box 12043

Newark, NJ 07101

(800) 334-7626 ext. 5129