Mercy Corps helping Honduran families hit by hurricane

Mercy Corps International
Thursday, 6 December 2001

Funding still needed to help communities devastated by Hurricane Michelle

Mercy Corps and its local partner, Proyecto Aldea Global (PAG), is helping families and farmers in Honduras trying to recover from last month's Hurricane Michelle which dumped heavy rain and caused widespread damage in impoverished rural communities.

According to Mercy Corps/PAG country director Chet Thomas, additional funding is still needed to help affected people in the municipalities of Sulaco, Victoria and Yorito where many residents describe the damage as being even worse than that caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Thomas says relief efforts are currently focusing on four areas:

Emergency food supplies

Mercy Corps/PAG purchased and moved 12 tons of emergency food aid to about 50 communities located in Sulaco, Victoria and Yorito. The food consisted of basic food staples such beans, corn and cooking oil and was distributed to approximately 500 families.

Housing

Flooding and high winds destroyed numerous houses. Mercy Corps/PAG is supplying corrugated metal roofing for up to 72 houses, as well as nails and cement for the floors. Plastic sheeting will be used to cover the walls of these houses until January a portable block-making machine will be used to make compressed adobe blocks.

Water

Mercy Corps/PAG has sent three truckloads of steel and plastic pipe, piping accessories, cement and steel rebar to repair 12 municipal water systems that supply water for nearly 30,000 people. Thomas say an additional $8000-$10,000 more is needed to finish the repair of these systems.

Agriculture

Mercy Corps/PAG has supplied approximately 25 tons of corn and bean seeds and fertilizer to 3,000 farmers whose crops were first affected by an extended drought and now have been damaged by the flooding caused by Hurricane Michelle.

For more information, or to contact Mercy Corps International, see their website at: www.mercycorps.org