Carlsbad,
CA - Thousands remain stranded and homeless in rural Honduras
after Hurricane Beta dumped over 40 inches of rain last
weekend. Thousands of families are still crying for food
and clean water, with hundreds still unreachable in remote
locations.
World
Emergency Relief’s global family has been responding
all week to this tragic tragedy. Dr. Claudio Casas, executive
director of WER’s office in Tegucigalpa, has been
leading relief teams in coordination with local
officials.
Immediate
plans for next week include supporting medical brigades
of local doctors and firefighters from Tegucigalpa, bringing
WER food and medicines to isolated storm victims.
Dr.
Casas and his team flew a donated helicopter to reach the
remote La Moskitia Coast with 800 pounds of food and medicine.
Heavy winds and rains constantly threatened their flight,
but the team got through after multiple diversions. Flying
directly over the Coast, the WER team saw heavy damage in
Las Marias and Wampusirpi, where WER’s rice farming
project was 40% destroyed.
Landing
in Puerto Lempira to refuel, Dr. Casas reported, “Along
all the way to and from Puerto Lempira we could see the
devastation of the crops. The local people pray that this
will be the last storm of the year, so they can replant
some rice and beans and have food next year.”
On their return flight, rains forced the WER team to land in Trujillo, where
they were stranded for 27 hours. During this down time, Dr. Casas disbursed
WER funds for local officials to buy food for stranded residents of Las Marias,
an 8-hour boat trip away.
WER’s
strategy this weekend is to load 5 tons of food and supplies
into boats in Trujillo, for coastal villages. Plans are
also being made to assemble a medical brigade to the same
area after this relief mission. Meanwhile, 38,000 pounds
of antibiotics and anti-fungal creams arrived in Honduras
today from WER-US in Carlsbad, California. |
