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Front page: Weeks after hurricane, Church workers in Guatemala fear disease 
GUATEMALA CITY (CNS) -- As the focus of international aid shifts to other disasters, church workers in Guatemala are concerned that the country still faces a potential health emergency and a long-term hunger crisis in the aftermath of the flooding and mudslides of Hurricane Stan.
"This is a time bomb," said Dr. Mario Fuentes, head of the pastoral health program for the San Marcos Diocese, in one of the hardest-hit provinces. Many of the water systems were destroyed in San Marcos, he said, and some areas were still without potable water.
Fuentes said health workers have treated numerous cases of diarrhea, respiratory illnesses and at least one case of typhoid fever. Similar health reports have come from the department of Solola and from areas along the Pacific coast, where heavy rains of Hurricane Stan caused devastating floods.
Father Raul Monterroso, pastor of Santa Cruz Parish in Chiquimulilla, a city near the Pacific coast, said he and other church members were also worried about the risk of dengue fever, a tropical disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Continued rain and standing water around many homes have made fertile breeding grounds for potential dengue-carrying mosquitoes.
"There are millions of mosquitoes," said 28-year old Luvia Carias, explaining why she had not yet returned to her humid, dirt-floor home in the community of La Rubia. She had been living in her mother's crowded house with her husband and two small children after spending 10 days in a nearby shelter. She said she did not plan on going home until after Christmas.
Nearly 33,000 homes were damaged by floods and landslides in Guatemala when Hurricane Stan passed over the Gulf of Mexico in early October, dumping rain on Central America and southern Mexico. Some 8,000 Guatemalans lost their homes completely, according to official figures.
At least 654 people were killed in Guatemala, according to the government's figures. Another 841 people remain missing; many of them are presumed dead. This makes Hurricane Stan the deadliest natural disaster in Guatemala since a 1976 earthquake killed 23,000 people.
The Red Cross and several other relief organizations allege that the government's official death toll is understated.
Many of the 140,000 people who crammed into shelters following the storm have since gone back home or moved in with family members while they rebuild their houses and lives, but some have no place to go back to.
Diego Coj Ajuchan and his wife, Concepcion Mendoza, are Tzutujil Maya from what was the village of Panabaj, in the highland province of Solola. On the morning of Oct. 5, the slopes of the volcano that towers above Panabaj let loose a torrent of earth and water that buried the entire village.
Coj Ajuchan and Mendoza lost their three children and their home in the disaster. Rescue workers uncovered 77 bodies before calling off the search, but the Guatemalan Red Cross estimated that some 2,000 people may have been killed in this and another nearby mudslide.
Now the couple sleep on a thin foam mat in the monastery that adjoins the Catholic church in Santiago Atitlan, near Panabaj. A bundle of clothing, all that is left of their worldly belongings, lies on the floor at the head of the mattress.
This couple and more than 2,500 other survivors of the disaster wait idly in makeshift shelters scattered around Santiago Atitlan while long-term shelters are constructed to house them for up to a year.
Alfonso Verdu, head of the Spanish contingent of Doctors Without Borders in Guatemala, said psychological attention for victims who suffered severe trauma, like Coj Ajuchan and Mendoza, will be key in the coming months. Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' international relief and development agency, also plans to provide mental health treatment and support groups for victims.
Basic emergency supplies are still needed for many communities. The village of San Maria Ixtahuacan, in Solola, got its first shipment of food and medicine nearly two weeks after emergency aid began to arrive in most other affected areas.
"They're in a very precarious situation," said Verdu. "They're sleeping on the ground, without shelter."
Fuentes said that as the emergency aid begins to wane, hunger will become a real concern.
"People's crops were completely destroyed," he said, "and they don't have work either." Malnutrition is already present to some degree in 75 percent of Mayan children in San Marcos department, he said.
Ian Cherrett, representative of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Guatemala, said many of the storm's victims were subsistence farmers, who live off their crops part of the year and work in the sugar cane and coffee plantations during harvest time. He said the mostly indigenous Maya, who are corn and bean farmers of the Guatemalan highlands, are particularly vulnerable to famine.
"It will be at least 10 months before people will be able to start eating their own crops again," Cherrett told reporters.
The government and relief agencies are developing plans and seeking funds to provide victims with food aid until the new harvest season comes around. Homes, water and sanitation systems also must be rebuilt.
Other long-term needs include seeds and disaster mitigation plans to prevent a future catastrophe from happening, said Lane Bunkers, CRS country representative in Guatemala.
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
