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Quake's aftershocks: mass burial and blame
By DAVID ADAMS © St. Petersburg Times, published January 16, 2001 El Salvador began burying earthquake victims in mass graves Monday as emergency officials, international rescue teams and sniffer dogs kept up an increasingly desperate search for survivors. Victims' families demanded to know why the government had allowed homes to be built on a hillside near the capital that gave way during the quake, burying hundreds of residents below. A makeshift morgue in the capital, San Salvador, was overwhelmed as the death toll reached 600. Police said 1,830 people were injured and nearly 34,000 houses were damaged or destroyed in the 7.6-magnitude tremor. Only four people had been found in the Las Colinas neighborhood on the outskirts of San Salvador, where the massive landslide swept away at least 300 houses. The hillside where the houses once stood resembled a giant ski slope of barren earth, littered with the wreckage of homes, mangled trees and a poignant jumble of personal belongings. The latest victim to be rescued, 22-year-old musician Sergio Moreno, was painting his new home Saturday morning when the earthquake sent the hillside crashing down on top of him. He was trapped in darkness in his bathroom, with concrete blocks pinning his legs. The ironwork of a balcony shielded his upper body. Moreno used a cellular phone to dial a friend, and within an hour rescuers were cutting through concrete to open a pathway. A garden hose was pushed through a hole to supply him with air. It wasn't until 9:30 p.m. Sunday that an international rescue team using car jacks, inflatable rescue bags and earthmoving equipment was able to pull Moreno out. "We have been with him the whole time, mostly giving him moral support," said paramedic Manuel Guzman. "We haven't left him alone for a minute; we've all been thinking that it could be one of us buried in there," he said late Sunday, minutes before rescuers extracted Moreno. Although Moreno survived the ordeal, doctors said Monday they would likely have to amputate both of Moreno's legs. Rescuers in Las Colinas battled aftershocks that on several occasions forced them to abandon their work. They conceded that Moreno may be the last person to emerge alive. Ana Maria Juarez and her husband stood silently in the dark as volunteers began to dig through the roof of their home searching for the body of their 16-year-old daughter. "At this point, I am only hoping to give her a Christian burial," said Mrs. Juarez. "We still don't know anything," said Gladis de Carman, searching for her daughter and crying as she spoke on a cell phone to her mother. "And now the ground is shaking again under us." Aided by the arrival of international rescue teams from Miami, Spain, Mexico, Venezuela and Taiwan, emergency officials vowed to continue the search. "It is very dangerous here, but we are going to keep hunting," said Juan Sanchez, a Salvadoran rescue worker. "We are going to take them out, alive or dead." The earthquake was felt throughout Central America. Several villages in eastern and western El Salvador were reported to have been nearly destroyed, although most people were able to evacuate their adobe-built homes in time. The U.S. Agency for International Development sent a 14-person team to El Salvador along with $256,000 in medical equipment and supplies. The agency also is funding the use of five U.S. military helicopters to help transport the injured and to distribute relief needs. Distraught relatives lined up Monday to try to identify missing relatives at an improvised San Salvador morgue in an alley stained with the blood of victims. Despite pleas from some family members, a coroner insisted that because of a lack of refrigeration and health concerns, he had no choice but to go ahead with the mass burials. To at least offer victims' families something akin to a decent burial, Salvadoran President Francisco Flores asked Colombia to donate 3,000 coffins. The government was also intensifying efforts to ferry food, blankets and tents to the thousands of homeless and clear roads of trees, earth and buried vehicles. The government has tried to calm nerves, assuring the population of this small nation of 6.2-million that the worst is over. But some residents are angry, blaming the government in part for the disaster. "This should not have happened. We warned them that the construction up on the hillside was going to cause us problems. I just had no idea it would be like this," said Mrs. Juarez. She was referring to a controversial upscale housing project being developed on the high slopes overlooking Las Colinas. Government officials granted permission for the new construction two years ago, despite strenuous local efforts to have the entire area declared a protected forest. Residents complained that clearing trees from the hillside left those below vulnerable to landslides. "Criminal! This is criminal, and they are criminals!" said Victoria Jimenez as she searched for the remains of her brother. One leading national newspaper, Diario de Hoy, also pointed the finger at the construction industry. In an editorial, the paper criticized "the legal and moral disorder which prevails in the country" under which construction companies "fail to take responsibility for the neighborhoods they put up." The paper also blamed authorities who, "instead of ensuring the safety of the buildings, wrongly preoccupy themselves with the form and not the substance." The anger in Las Colinas was palpable. When President Flores visited the site he was greeted with boos and insults. "This is your fault," shouted a distraught woman. "Get away from there, you're standing on top of our dead!" screamed another. The government has not publicly responded to the accusations of official responsibility for the landslide. One resident summed up local feelings: "The earthquake was the work of God," said Jose Luis Rodriguez, who was still searching for his missing mother-in-law. "But this is the work of man," he added, looking at the gash in the hillside. - Information from Times correspondent Tom Long in San Salvador, the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times was used in this report.
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