El Salvador’s Quake Victims Begin State-Paid Cleanup Jobs

Earthquake victims began new state-sponsored jobs Sunday, clearing debris from neighbors’ homes as the Salvadoran government focused on repairing roads, hospitals and schools.

Families throughout the impoverished coffee-growing nation could earn about $85 for the work at the homes of neighbors who either died in quake-driven mudslides or are too old or injured to remove the rubble.

Although the amount is little more than half the average monthly minimum wage, the government program, which is expected to cost about $750,000, will boost incomes in Central America’s smallest nation, where about a quarter of the population survives on less than $1 a day.

While victims swept up after the 7.6 magnitude quake that is estimated to have killed more than 700 people, injured almost 4,000 and wrecked the homes of about 10% of the population, emergency workers plowed through massive mudslides blocking roads and inspected damage at hundreds of schools and hospitals.

“This is a marathon. So let’s take a deep breath and summon up our energies because there is a lot to be done to reconstruct our nation,” President Francisco Flores said.

Economists estimate it will take up to six years to rebuild the homes and a decade to repair infrastructure in the mountainous nation of 6.2 million people.

San Salvador, the capital, was less affected by the quake than some other areas.

For thousands of children whose families lost houses and now camp out at refugee centers, the experience of being homeless was new and added to their trauma, Vicente Gaviria, a UNICEF official in El Salvador, said.

“We have an enormous task ahead of us of training teachers and churchmen how to help children get over their losses,” he said of a program to educate 500 mentors about post-trauma stress.

The Roman Catholic Church urged people to put the devout country back on its feet.