SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras – Shelters for others whose homes were flooded or destroyed by Hurricanes Eta and Iota in Honduras are now so crowded that thousands of victims have taken refuge under viaducts or road bridges.
The International Red Cross estimates that about four. 2 million more people were affected by consecutive Category Four hurricanes in November in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Several hundred thousand are in shelters or casual camps throughout the region.
But nowhere are the evacuated sick more stacked than in the city of San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras, where some neighborhoods are still underwater. It’ll locate everything missing.
Orlando Antonio Linares supervises a municipal shelter at a school in San Pedro Sula, where about 500 victims of the hurricane took refuge. There are around 84 hostels throughout the city, housing up to 100,000 people.
“There is a shortage of everything,” Linares said, referring to water, food and medicine. “There is a shortage because, after those two hurricanes, the need is so great. “
The scenario also reflects the difficulty of harboring those suffering from herbal errors amid the coronavirus pandemic: there is no room for social estating in school and few people wear masks.
“We paint against COVID,” Linares said, noting that “we give other people the curtains (masks), but then they don’t wear them. We want to teach other people. “
At the moment, evacuees are much more involved in obtaining essentials and care about what they will find when they return home.
The couple Rebeca Daaz and José Alberto Murillo and their five children have been in the shelter for about two weeks, after Eta and Iota flooded their neighborhood.
“We’ve been sleeping on the floor for two weeks, they’re sleeping on the floor,” Murillo said. “They’ve forgotten us. “
Daaz is more concerned about his home than the coronavirus. “I want roof pictures, ” he said. I don’t have any roof over our heads. “
Irma Sarmiento, a housewife, expressed concern that her space in the Colonia Nuevo San Juan neighborhood, she says, is still underwater.
“I feel that the long term is uncertain. We have nothing left,” Sarmiento said. “Paint your whole life for nothing. “
“What will we have when we get back? Nothing,” he said.
However, there are those who are in the worst situation. Former maquiladora employee Jarlin Antonio Lorenzo said he couldn’t even locate a position in a shelter; instead, he and 500 other people camped under a road viaduct on the outskirts of town.
“There are no toilets, other people go through the hills to go to the bathroom,” he said. “People are starving hereArray . . . The shelters are full. “