Slow recovery from Hurricane Mitch is frustrating many in Honduras
October 1999 - TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -— The images were unforgettable: Raging rivers of mud and debris smashing through downtown Tegucigalpa, swallowing entire buildings, city buses and thousands of people during Hurricane Mitch's weeklong rampage a year ago.
Orlando Barahona carries baby banana plants at a Chiquita Brands farm in La Lima, Honduras. Some workers are still idle because of Floyd.
The most devastating storm to strike Central America this century left behind an astonishing toll. Hondurans saw 90 percent of their nation's infrastructure severely damaged. In neighboring Nicaragua, a dormant volcano collapsed when its cone flooded with rainwater, and the landslide buried about 2,000 people. In all, more than 9,000 Central Americans were killed, and thousands more remain missing and presumed dead.
Mitch the hurricane has long since dissipated, but it is a living storm in the minds of Central Americans because of its ongoing impact. In Nicaragua, recent heavy rains have dislodged numerous corpses left in a mass grave at the foot of the collapsed Casitas volcano, a grisly reminder of the death and destruction wrought by Mitch.
In Honduras, the country hardest hit, caked beds of dry mud remain on low-lying streets across Tegucigalpa, the capital, despite the feverish pace of international aid efforts to help Central America's poorest nation dig itself out. On a downtown street, dozens of dump trucks recently waited in line to continue the daily haul of mud that buried entire neighborhoods last year.
Tens of thousands remain homeless, assigned to live in numerous temporary shelters built atop the few safe vacant lots remaining in the city. Across Honduras, an estimated 280,000 people are still without permanent residence, and an additional 8,000 homeless have been sent to temporary shelters in recent weeks because of heavy rains and floods.
It is apparent to all — victims and aid workers alike — that the word "recovery" is little more than a foggy concept that may be achieved sometime over the next decade or so.
"Nobody knows how long it will take," said stone mason Eric Antonio Mendoza.
Some flood victims, tired of the slow pace of government relocation efforts, have decided simply to return to the places where their homes once stood and rebuild.
The signs of recovery are slowly emerging across Honduras, even as farm workers are taking over highways and constructing A-frame temporary shelters to escape rising flood waters caused by the recent heavy rains.
At a Chiquita banana plantation that was devastated by Mitch in La Lima, in northern Honduras, new crops already have reached heights of 8 to 10 feet and are producing fruit. Within a year, a plantation manager said, the fruit should be mature enough to be of export quality.
The nation's shrimp and coffee industries are back on their feet. Fears of widespread health problems and mass migration to the United States have diminished.
