November 19, 2007   •   VOL. 45, NO. 20   •   Oakland, CA

Cathedral serves as refuge after Mexico flood
 

Residents walk on a flooded street in Villahermosa, Mexico, after being forced from their homes when rivers overflowed their banks following torrential rains. The floods have devastated 70 percent of the southern state of Tabasco. CNS PHOTO/ODALIZ ANAYA/REUTERS

Most of the state’s crops
have been destroyed,
wiping out income for
a third of the population.

By Ioan Grillo
Catholic News Service

VILLAHERMOSA, MEXICO (CNS) — Wailing babies crawled about on heaps of mattresses and blankets in front of the altar. Exhausted grandmothers laid down on the pews and stared up at the stained-glass murals. Thousands of hungry faces lined up outside the arched door, waiting for packets of food and water.

The elegant cathedral in the Tabasco state capital of Villahermosa was transformed into one of the principal centers for evacuees fleeing floods that devastated southeastern Mexico in late October, leaving at least 10 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless and turning sections of this city into a hazardous swamp.

More arrived daily to take shelter in every corner of the cathedral and throughout its patio and gardens. Each one brought a story of personal tragedy: how filthy waters enveloped their homes; how they fled from rooftops onto boats and helicopters moving over the river-like streets; how they lost sight of their loved ones in the chaos.

But amid the suffering, the evacuees were calm and orderly, taking turns to sweep and wash the church aisles and waiting patiently in long lines for the relief packages, even when they have not had food or drink for days.

“We are not going to fight over the food. Everybody here has suffered the same,” said Maria del Carmen Arias, 48, sitting in the doorway of the crowded church with a sleeping granddaughter in her lap.

Milagros del Carmen Perez, 7, and her sister, Maritza Guadalupe Perez, 8 months, are among the hundreds of flood victims who are living in the cathedral in Villahermosa, Mexico. CNS PHOTO/JENNIFER SZYMASZK

Arias said her family of eight escaped through waist-deep water after the river suddenly gushed into their home, taking everything they owned. Like many of the disaster victims, Arias lived in a neighborhood of tin and cinderblock houses on low ground.

Graciela Cruz, 25, slept in the church by night while desperately trying to find her mother during the day. She had not seen her since the floods overtook their house. “I have been to every center and there is no sign of her,” Cruz said. “I am here praying she has not been hurt.”

Father Manuel de la Cruz Ordonez Hernandez, cathedral rector, said he is unconcerned about the church being damaged while thousands of evacuees lived and slept in every corner of it.

“We are not worried at all. We can repaint the cathedral, rebuild it. Why would we want a beautiful church if the people are suffering?” Father Ordonez asked, talking amid a flurry of requests: an evacuee needed medical help; a new truck of relief supplies had arrived; the electricity lighting up the courtyard had gone out.

The swampy oil state of Tabasco has a history of flooding, but has never seen anything of this magnitude. “We are seeing one of the worst natural catastrophes in the history of the country, not only because of the size of the area affected, but because of the number of people affected,” said President Felipe Calderon.

After a week of torrential rain, rivers across southeastern Mexico burst their banks in late October. The water enveloped more than 70 percent of the swampy state of Tabasco, home to 2 million people and the sprawling oil city of Villahermosa. It also wreaked havoc in mountain communities in the neighboring state of Chiapas, unleashing a Nov. 4 landslide that wiped a village completely off the map.

The water levels have started to recede, but only slowly. Large swaths of the city appear like a huge lagoon, from which peek the tops of houses. The vast inland sea continues over smaller towns and villages into the Gulf of Mexico. Small neighborhoods on higher ground form little islands, cut off on all sides.

Crops of corn, bananas and beans have been ripped to pieces, robbing many of their only income; the decaying corpses of thousands of cows, pigs and chickens line fields; hundreds of thousands of homes are damaged or destroyed; water supplies to villages are polluted.

“Now is the real test. This is a situation that is going to affect people for months or even years,” said Eufemio Flores, emergency coordinator for Caritas Mexico, the local affiliate of the Catholic umbrella organization Caritas Internationalis.

“The evacuation operation was good. But in the past, our government has been notorious for quickly forgetting about the long-term problems of people in disaster zones,” he said.

At least 18 people were killed by the floods and dozens are still missing. International observers say the death toll was relatively low because the Mexican government and aid organizations were quick to evacuate people, set up shelters and fly in packages of water, food and medical supplies.

In the farming village of Santa Catalina, just north of Villahermosa, 300 residents crammed into their schoolhouse for a week, eating dry tortillas while their houses were submerged.

When the water finally receded, they clambered out, hungry and tired, to find their crops devastated.

“I don’t know what we are going to do. We have nothing for this year’s harvest. How are we going to live?” asked Jesus Hilario, staring wide-eyed at the torn up bushels on his watery corn patch.

Tabasco’s Economy Ministry reports that the state’s agriculture — which also includes cocoa, sugar cane and citrus — has been almost completely destroyed for the year, wiping out the income of up to a third of the population.

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