Across a sea of putrid mud a metre or so deep, Marvin Argueta pointed to the remnants of what a week ago was his home on the banks of the Chamelecón River. He had lost everything – but he still considers himself lucky.
“If we hadn’t got out in time, we all would have died,” said Argueta, 22, who along with his wife and four children abandoned their house when the flood waters reached waist height in the middle of the night. “A friend of mine lost his entire family.”
Argueta and his family are among hundreds of thousands in Honduras who lost everything they own in floods caused by Hurricane Eta. The storm made landfall off the coast of Nicaragua on 3 November as a category 4 hurricane before slowly moving across Honduras and then Guatemala.
“When we first came back to see our home we cried because everything was buried in mud,” said Argueta, who recently lost his job in construction and is now living underneath a nearby bridge with about a hundred other families. “We didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
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In Guatemala, scores of people are feared dead after rain tore off the side of a mountain, burying the village of Quejá. As the flood waters recede in Honduras the storm’s full toll there is starting to emerge. Although the official death count remains low, people are returning to what’s left of their homes to find Dantesque scenes of human and animal remains half-buried in mud, and there are countless others whose loved ones have disappeared.
In the valley surrounding San Pedro Sula, several rivers and flood canals overflowed so high that tens of thousands were trapped for days on rooftops without food or water. The total number of victims will likely never be known.
“I’m worried about my family because I haven’t heard anything from them,” said Raquel Aguilar, a resident of La Lima, one of the hardest hit communities in San Pedro Sula. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “The last picture they sent us all that you could see were the rooftops.”
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Economists believe the loss could be greater even than that inflicted in 1998 by Hurricane Mitch, the most destructive storm to ever hit Central America and the second most deadly Atlantic hurricane in recorded history.
The brunt of the damage caused by Mitch was borne by the capital city of Tegucigalpa and the south of the country.
This time, however, the epicentre of the destruction is near the north coast, around San Pedro Sula, the country’s second-largest city and economic motor, home to more than 2 million people.
“There are 13 communities along the tributaries of the Ulua River that are still mostly isolated and where many still are on the roofs of their homes waiting for a rescue,” said Ismael Moreno, a Jesuit priest and director of the non-profit media outlet Radio Progreso.
The response by the Honduran government to the threat of Hurricane Eta – and later the destruction left in its wake – has been harshly criticised.
Hoping to stimulate the economy following the downturn caused by Covid-19, the government had scheduled a special holiday for last week that it was slow to cancel despite forecasts of a looming natural disaster that proved exceptionally accurate.
“By 1 November, the information about the strength and path of Hurricane Eta was already known,” said Moreno. “Nonetheless, on 2 November the government continued calling for people to go on vacation.”
The head of the country’s emergency response unit – a former reggaeton rapper who went by the name “Killa” and whose critics say holds few qualifications for such an important job – had only been in the position a few weeks before Eta struck.
That an event comparable to the catastrophe of Mitch could happen again suggests that not only were lessons forgotten, but also that conditions in Honduras have left the country even more vulnerable to disaster, said Moreno.
“Hurricane Mitch brought seven days of constant rain,” said Moreno. “Eta poured rain for 48 hours. Nonetheless, the water from Eta has flooded areas that 22 years ago weren’t flooded by Mitch and it has left a number of people who’ve lost everything that’s even greater than that of Mitch.”
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The effects of the pandemic will make rebuilding this time around even harder. The Honduran government has called for aid from the international community, but like its own response to Hurricane Eta, the response has been slow and insufficient. So far, the United States Agency for International Development has pledged a mere $100,000 for what, in all likelihood, will turn out to be a multi-billion-dollar disaster.
No expressions of condolences or concern have come from the White House.
In the years following Mitch, Hondurans migrated to the US in significant numbers for the first time. Many of those migrants were granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that has allowed them to live in the US legally ever since, but which has been under attack by the Trump administration.
Guatemala has announced that it will request TPS for its citizens in the US due to the damage caused by Eta, and it’s expected that Honduras, which was hit much harder than its neighbour, will follow suit.
With the pandemic and now Eta, several of the factors that have forced so many to migrate in recent years are now arguably worse than ever.
“The Eta storm has reopened wounds that have been bleeding for many years,” said Moreno. “We’ll continue with an economic situation and unemployment that will force even more to migrate to the United States.”
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