wfn.org | CWS / NCCCUSA Relief Work in Honduras after Mitch

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Internet: news@ncccusa.org

Contact: Chris Herlinger, NCC, 212-870-2068

127NCC12/4/98                       FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A DUST BOWL IN HONDURAS: CWS/ACT BEGIN RELIEF WORK AFTER 
MITCH

 CHOLUTECA, HONDURAS, 29 November, 1998 -- To visit 
Choluteca, Honduras, a month after Hurricane Mitch is to 
see something of a scale that, as one person put it, 
cannot easily fit into a photograph, a reporter's 
notebook, or one person`s consciousness. The damage is 
that massive.

 Perhaps it is best explained by describing the 
Choluteca River, in southern Honduras. Following massive 
floods that changed the river's course, a month's worth 
of dried mud, silt, chemical contaminants, human waste 
and remains are choking the air. Stirred by high winds, 
these elements are creating what some are calling Central 
America's first desert -- an area not unlike the Oklahoma 
Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

 From miles away, the dust obscures the mountains 
that overlook the Choluteca Valley; near the river, the 
dust sticks to the skin and grits in the teeth. The dust 
is, of course, exacerbating health problems for residents 
who are already weary and sick following a month that has 
brought shock and fatigue.

 Health problems in Choluteca are one focus of the 
response by ACT-Christian Commission for Development 
(CCD). Hence ACT-CCD is organizing health teams from 
other ACT members such as Church of the Brethren and 
Church World Service (CWS).  Church World Service is the 
human development, disaster relief and refugee assistance 
ministry of the National Council of Churches.  Last week, 
a CWS team joined a Brethren team in working throughout 
Choluteca, providing medical assistance in rural 
communities.

 Another ACT-CCD focus will be on long-term food 
security; there is real concern that it will take years 
for the mud-choked land to recover, and that short-term, 
emergency food supplies will be stretched thin beginning 
next spring.

 "Next year is going to present real problems," said 
Dilcia Paz, a CCD regional organizer. 

 The problem is visible in the village of Llancitos, 
about 20 kilometers south of the city of Choluteca. As 
dust hovers overhead, mud covers the fields; residents 
like Jose Castillo are hacking away at the limbs and 
roots of fallen trees. Barely stopping to chat, Castillo 
recounts the toll of the last month -- four days of water 
up to the chest, weeks of cleanup and sickness.

 But Castillo and his family survived, and for that, 
Castillo is thankful. 

 "Thank God for life," he says.

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