Heavy rains loosened earth from the hills surrounding San Lucas. The weight of the waterlogged earth became so immense that huge portions of the hillsides gave way and came crashing down, leaving destruction in their wake. After the rains stopped, 10 people were reported dead; over 50 families had their houses completely destroyed; over 500 families were affected and now stand in high-risk areas, susceptible to future mudslides.
About a dozen mudslides affected the larger community of San Lucas Tolimán. Here, the brown swaths show where the mud came barrelling down. Although not all of the mudslides reached town, many left houses buried, filled with mud, or at greater risk for future damage.
Here, a house already fragile – made of wooden boards and corrugated steel – collapsed like a house of cards under the weight and force of the immense mudslides. This family’s home was completely destroyed; they will never return. This image captures the sheer power of these natural disasters and the precariousness of a live in poverty.
Even those whose houses were not covered with mud were affected. Rainwater and mud swept through this man’s house, leaving significant damage to the property and days of cleanup.
For people with few possessions to begin with, disasters like this are felt especially hard. These personal belongings – a market basket and cooking pot among others – belong to one of many families who lost everything they had. The cost to replace these, let alone the expense of finding a safe place to live, is almost too much for a family to bear.
This window originally stood almost 4 feet off the ground. This house, now buried and filled with debris, stood on the Finca Pampojila, which was affected by Hurricane Stan in 2005. After this disaster 5 years ago, the Parish was able to offer the entire finca (160 families) a new place to live in the Community San Andres. If these people had been forced to stay on the finca, the death toll could have been significantly higher and the material loss even greater still.
Here, the worst of the mudslides on the Finca Pampojila, just outside of San Lucas. The telephone poles mark the left border of the major highway out of town towards the coast. The tremendous amount of rock, pictured, cut of vehicle passage entirely for several days; heavy rains falling as recently as June 9, despite large construction trucks attempting to clear the road, rendered the road impassable. Before the mudslide here, coffee trees lined either side of the road.
Traffic was, to say the least, disrupted. One “chicken bus” got stuck in the mudslide that cut a vast gulf through the road. Many rely on the road not just for transportation of supplies, but also as a way to get to and from work.
With no swift passage between San Lucas and the more rural communities, people were left to walk back and forth with food, water, and other supplies. Some walked up to four hours before intermittent use of the road was restored. In the market, the price of tomatoes doubled as food became scarce. It was several days before even potable water arrived in San Lucas.
If you have traveled to San Lucas yourself, you have driven along this road. Another mudslide, further outside of town by the community Xejuyu, also cut off a portion of the road. For a time, the wooden bridge, pictured below, was the only way to pass. It will be months before a bridge is engineered and built to regularly sustain the heavy rains here.
People walk along the highway – which is caked with dry mud – to travel between the rural communities.
Another huge loss for community members is the destruction of farmland. Here lies a sea of mud where fruitful coffee tries once stood. Each year, through the Parish’s coffee program, small coffee farmers would earn thousands of quetzales a year – for many, the largest part of their income. Now, it will not only be this year’s harvest which is damaged, but it will be at least 5 years until the lands are productive again – and still they are at tremendous risk for future erosion, potentially rendering them useless.
Dozens of acres of coffee plots belonging to small farmers has been lost, possibly forever. It was hoped this year would be produce an exceptionally high coffee harvest; those hopes are all but ruined. Corn and bean harvests – the staple of the Maya – are also buried. In this coffee field where a mudslide swept through, an enormous boulder leans against a shade tree, capturing the power of the storm.
Some boulders tower at a height of almost 7 feet tall. This man, roughly 5’4”, went to see if his fields were affected. He lost almost half of his crop to, mud, debris, and boulders like this one.
Some of the mudslides slid directly into the lake. The lake, already heavily contaminated, is the source of water for all of San Lucas and surrounding communities. Higher contamination levels in the lake after Agatha increase the health complications from water intake. Additionally, the mudslides in the valley destroyed several water systems in the rural communities, which were left without water for days. Over 1,000 families still did not have access to any water 8 days after the storm.
One such family sit and assess the damage to their home, with debris surrounding them. With contaminated water and limited access to proper nutrition, children are at higher risk for serious illness. According to a Parish health promoter interviewed 8 days after the storm, there were still 700 children under the age of 5 without access to water.
On Tuesday, June 1st, the government arrived in San Lucas with basic supplies – beans, rice, corn, and sugar – for families. As the helicopters touched down on the soccer field, crowds rushed forth to lay claim to the precious resources. While helpful on some level, the distribution of these items was hasty and ineffective, resembling a free-for-all.
Many families who had greater need for the supplies – those who had truly lost everything – look helplessly onward as they are unable to reach the helicopters because of the massive flooding of the soccer field. Families are left with great needs and feelings of injustice as the masses clamour for the aid.
After the rains let up, people began cleanup. In many houses, mud filled half the house and families stashed belongings on bunk beds or pulled them out through windows to try and save what they could. This house was flooded with about 8 inches of mud.
Mud that filled houses had to be removed somehow. People used shovels, hoes, and buckets to move the mud outside of their dwellings into the street.
This photo shows the kind of muck the entire community was forced to deal with following the disaster.
Even once dry, to remove the dirt and mud from this street was an enormous task. Just to allow the passage of cars, over a dozen young men use wheelbarrows as they carry the dirt to a truck for removal.
A family maneuvers through the mud as they venture out from their homes after the storm.
Children scamper across the rocks through the Finca Pampjila. Almost everybody agrees that the scope of this disaster trumps that of Hurricane Stan in 2005, at least in San Lucas. Although there were fewer lives lost, the material damage is immense, like these boulders carried down from the hillsides of the volcanoes.
This massive gully shows where the mudslide came down the hill, bringing trees, rocks, and tons of water with it. The risk for future disasters is significantly higher now.
