NicaNet - Environment

NicaNet - The Nicaragua Information Network

Hurricane Felix Devastates Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast! You can help!

Hurricane Felix continued its trajectory across northern Nicaragua yesterday destroying houses, causing floods, landslides and loss of crops in Wiwilí, Pantasma, Raití and many other northern municipalities, some of which were hit hard nine years ago by the devastation of Hurricane Mitch. The Miskito indigenous communities located along the Coco River were the hardest hit. In Raití, 120 families lost their houses and their health center as well. Landslides were reported in the vicinities of Wiwilí and Pantasma.

If you can make a contribution to help the Nicaraguan victims of Hurricane Felix, click here!

Felix hit the Nicaraguan coast on Tuesday as a category five hurricane between Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas) and Cabo Gracias a Dios. Among the worst affected was the community of Sandy Bay where 903 houses were completely destroyed and 508 left without roofs. But that is not the worst the community faces. Everyone in the community has “family members who disappeared at sea,” said Emilio Panting. “There are more than 200 persons who nobody knows where they are, but before the hurricane they were in their fishing boats in the [Miskito] Cays.” Some of those missing have washed onto shore, surviving by holding onto debris. “The sons of Seferino Downs were floating for 12 hours on a few plastic jugs,” Panting said. Only one of them survived to tell the story.

Rev. Felton Allen, of the Moravian Church of Sandy Bay, traveled to Bilwi to report on 10 communities destroyed by Felix with 16,000 inhabitants left without roofs over their heads and without food or medicine. “Only the concrete posts of the houses are left; the roofs disappeared and the walls fell away as if they had been made of cardboard,” Allen said upon arrival at the offices of the North Atlantic Regional Government in Bilwi.

Allan Brooks, of the Miskito Council of Elders, said of Sandy Bay, “There is no place to go to get out of the rain; Felix took away everything.” It is feared that the Miskito population will have suffered a significant loss of life. Many Miskito survivors have reported being washed out to sea and clinging to floating debris until being washed back to shore.

Meanwhile, almost all the schools in the area hit by Felix have lost their roofs and can no longer serve as community refuges. The Ministry of Education announced that it will send 500 sheets of galvanized steel roofing to replace as many of the roofs as possible. Yet many more roofing sheets will be needed, because about 25 pieces of roofing are required to cover just one small school, and far more than 20 schools are in need of repair. Marlene Valdivia, general secretary of the Ministry, said that over 100,000 students will be affected by the damage to their schools.

Click here to make a contribution to the victims of the hurricane!

President Daniel Ortega, who visited the affected area, has declared the semi-autonomous Caribbean coastal region a disaster area. Ortega flew from Bilwi to Cabo Gracias a Dios visiting those towns and others. “There are communities that were totally destroyed looking toward the mining triangle [Siuna, Rosita and Bonanza] including Santa Martha, Sin Sin, and Shasa, but we don’t yet have a detailed report of the number of victims, dead or injured, although we believe that there are more than 50,000 without roofs over their heads and an unknown number of disappeared,” he said. He noted that they could see damage to the rice crops of Bismuna and added that there was “unquantifiable” damage to the region’s forests. The communities along the Coco River are in a particularly difficult situation, he said, with the river still rising. There is food available but the problem is how to get it to the people there who need it. He stated that he expected a Venezuelan Air Force plane with construction materials and a Chinook helicopter from the United States which would be used to carry assistance to difficult to reach Atlantic Coast communities. Later news reports said that Ortega had met the helicopter and its crew and requested that its first mission be to carry supplies to Sandy Bay.

Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan navy was trying to reach coastal marshland settlements by sea to look for more victims.

Nicaragua Network will continue to release bulletins as information becomes available. It is certain that emergency money will be needed immediately to allow people to survive the next week and to begin the rebuilding process. If you are able to help, you can make a tax-deductible donation through the Nicaragua Network. One hundred percent of your contribution will be used to aid the hurricane victims. You can make a secure on-line credit card donation by going to: http://www.nicanet.org/donate_afgj.htm. Write “Hurricane” in the “Other” blank to insure your donation is directed to hurricane relief. You can also call our office at 202-544-9355 with your credit card information or send a check to Nicaragua Network, 1247 E St., SE, Washington, DC 20003. Be sure to put “Hurricane relief” in the memo or include a note.