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November Volume
13,
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1998
Number
t
8
atholic NEWS HERALD
iliiZS
11
Serving Catholics
Insid
in
Western North Carolina
the Diocese of Charlotte
in
Hondurans describe devastation after Hurricane Mitch waslies away lives
Anniversary
Mass
By mike LANCHIN
Couples gather
at
Catholic
Service
Honduras
—
to celebrate
marriage ...Page
News
TEGUCIGALPA,
Charlotte parish
16
Angle Diaz, 20, and her five (CNS) younger siblings could only look on and cry as the raging floods tossed their tiny wooden house and all their belongings into the swirling Choluteca River
on
Campaign
Religion
rampage through the Honduran
its
capital,
Should voters care who's more Catholic?
...Page
7
Papal U.N. ambassador urges support for Mideast
peace agreement ...Page
13
Local News
told to evacuate the houses, as the waters rose I grabbed the smaller children and fled. Once up the main road we looked back to see our home floating like a paper boat on the huge river," Diaz said. Hurricane Mitch swept through Central America in late October and early November, hitting hardest in Honduras and Nicaragua, killing thousands and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. "It was terrible, the worst thing I have ever lived through; I cannot find the
words
Belmont Abbey Church
made minor basilica
...Page
3
Tegucigalpa.
"When we were
to explain
how
I
as the waters
felt
converged on our house," said Diaz, who was in charge of her brothers and sisters because her mother was out of the country looking for work. "I thought that the world was coming to an end." Diaz is from El Progreso community, one of hundreds of neighborhoods along the banks of the Choluteca literally wiped off" the map in the early hours of Nov. 1, as the
huge
river burst into large ar-
CNS
his house, Mendoza and his family lived under a makeshift shelter of corrugated iron sheets beside the
lowed up
of rubble that was once home. "We're staying here for the time being because we have nowhere else to go. I can't afford to rent somewhere," he said. He said his wife continued to do laundry in the dirty waters of the Choluteca, which had subsided
pile
eas of Tegucigalpa.
...Page
some 500 shacks in El Progreso had disap-
15
"God's Plan for Growing Up" Child/parent family life program held at Basilica of St. Lawrence
...Page
since the flooding, leaving
In a matter of hours,
Campaign for Human Development
Catholic
14
peared into the river as the steep slope above the community collapsed under the weight of torrential rains, sending holders
The World
sure people have got
enough to eat and where to sleep, but also how to overcome the
and rocks hurtling down.
hood there's now no trace that anything was
in Brief
...Page
Editorials
2
& Columns ...Pages
4-5
Entertainment Pages 10-11 Faith Alive! ...Pages
8-9
odd remains of walls, roofs and doors jutting out from the mud swamp.
not just a
question of making
"In our neighbor-
fvcry Week
"It's
psychological effects of the disaster."
—
One woman, waiting in line to wash in the river, said, "The (government) water tanks came three days ago. There's lots of di-
arrhea and fever here, especially
among
the
children."
Alexis Ordonez
once there," said Diaz. Some 60,000 people were left homeless in Tegucigalpa by Hurricane Mitch. About 30 percent of the city's housing is calculated to have been destroyed or badly damaged. Marco Antonio Mendoza, a carpenter from Tegucigalpa, said that he did not expect to |lnd work soon, and that his first concern was to find a new plot where he could rebuild his house. For at least eight days after the muddy waters of the Choluteca swal-
PHOTO FROM Reuters
Residents of the town of El Progreso in Honduras wade neck-high in floodwaters to reach their homes Nov. 3. Pope John Paul II, international aid agencies and churches in Central America have appealed for aid to assist people in the area devastated by Hurricane Mitch.
Reconnecting the water supply has been one of the major problems faccity's
ing the authorities.
More than half
the population of Tegucigalpa still
without water as of Nov.
ation
was
particularly critical
was
The situin many of
8.
the hurricane in the small local school
became home to 75 refugees, including 45 children. In one classroom, three families of 14 children and four adults camped out on two worn mattresses and a wooden board for beds. Cruz was in charge of cooking the that
daily rations, boiled rice and spaghetti.
She spooned
a
mouthful onto each
family's plastic plate.
"We only give out a small amount so that
it all goes around," she explained. Sixteen of the shelters around the
were being administered by a Honduran ecumenical group, the Ascity
sociation of Christian Youth.
'W^e need specialized medicine and that's causing us drinking water lots of problems," said the association's director, Alexis Ordonez. He suggested that there was also a need for mental health therapy, to help people get over the trauma of losing everything they owned. "It's not just a question of making sure people have got enough to eat, and where to sleep, but also how to overcome the psychological effects of t the disaster," Ordonez said,
—
the overcrowded shelters set up for the
homeless and evacuees around the
capital
city.^^
"The lack of water has been problem.
We have
it
rationed out so
a it
Rosa Lidia Cruz of the community of Altos de San Francisco. She spent at least eight days after
For information on how to contribute to the Hurricane Mitch Relief Fund, please see editorial, page 4.
lasts," said
Also see related story, page
12.