'October 2005 will be remembered as a month that left death, desolation and anguish to thousands of Guatemalans.'

Holly Bruford, a former employee of Christian Aid, moved to Guatemala last year to live and work. She reports on how Tropical Storm Stan has affected the country.

October 2005 will be remembered as a month that left death, desolation and anguish to thousands of Guatemalans affected by the fury of the Tropical Storm Stan that hit the south western region of the country last week.

With the death toll currently at 756 and at least 337 missing in communities buried by avalanches of mud, the impact of the storm has surpassed, in terms of lives lost, the Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Close to a hundred thousand people have been affected. Final figures may never be known as the near impossible search continues and bodies are still being recovered.

The intense rain started on the first day of the month, when the storm hit the Gulf of Mexico. It converted itself into a Grade 1 hurricane but was downgraded to a tropical storm by the end of the day.

The subsequent impact of the storm was overwhelming in a region particularly vulnerable to rain. With the majority of the population living in precarious, makeshift homes on mountainsides or dangerously close to riverbeds, entire communities disappeared under avalanches of mud.

Flimsy homes

Hills, volcanoes and valleys sodden with rain gave way, burying homes made of wood and tin.

On the shores of the popular tourist destination Lake Atitlan, two communities, Panabaj and Tzanchaj, were completely buried by a mountain of mud when one side of the volcano Santiago Atitlan collapsed. In a few seconds the zone became a giant cemetery. Dozens of bodies are still buried.

It was one a.m. I heard a huge roar, the ground started to shake and before I realised what was going on, a mountain of mud came crashing down from above.

I had no time to save anyone.

Juan Mendoza Chicay, a survivor of Panabaj, lost eight members of his family. Up to a thousand or more people are now presumed dead in the Panabaj mudslide - possibly the entire population of the village.

Rescue

Guatemala's National Disasters Committee, Conred, seems unable to deal with the scale of the disaster. The figure of 337 missing people does not include those from 118 isolated communities still cut off as rescue teams are impeded by flooding, destroyed bridges and blocked roads.

The country's important Pacific Coast Highway remains impassable after raging rivers destroyed five bridges, whilst the principal InterAmerican Highway is blocked with fallen trees and from landslides.

Even air rescue teams have not been able to penetrate some storm struck areas due to continuous bad weather.

Agriculture

Tropical Storm Stan has affected 30% of the national territory. It has hit zones where infrastructure is precarious but also where land is the most productive in the country.

The initial calculated cost in damage to agriculture is close to $400 million. Nearly 30,000 km² of farmland has been decimated with 10% of the country's coffee harvest destroyed.

The government has presented a request for aid to the International Community, amassing to more than US$76 million.

The resources would be used to provide aid for 30 days to an estimated 104,000 victims across the region, as well as the purchase of equipment to begin reconstruction.

In addition, short term aid has been requested on both a local and international level, but despite the show of solidarity as the Guatemalans unite in collecting clothes, food and water it appears, to date, that the authorities simply do not have the capacity to distribute the donations.

At time of writing the official region wide death toll had reached 614 with the other 105 deaths scattered throughout El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica.

President Berger has asked that the nation prepare itself as the final outcome of the natural disaster could be catastrophic in terms of human and material loss, with meteorologists forecasting more rain to come.

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