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This is the second part of the four-part “Mission of the Heart” series
Copyright 2000 Des Moines Register Reprinted with permissionMarch 20, 2000 MondaySECTION: MAIN NEWS; Pg. 1AHEADLINE:
Tragic sights shake IowansSurvivors of floods tell tales of sorrow
By STEPHEN BUTTRYREGISTER STAFF WRITER  Los Corales, Venezuela - Jose Roure leads the way through the swath of boulders and hardened mud that covers what used to be his neighborhood. He stopsnear a small cross and a potted chrysanthemum. Nearby lies a child's brownsneaker. Here, he says, was his parents' house. Somewhere buried under rock and mud,he hopes, lies his mother, Maria Teresa Roure. "I prefer to think that she isdown there," Roure says, "and the water didn't take her." He looks toward the Caribbean Sea, about a mile away. The water took countless thousands of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who were swept awayby onrushing water, mud and rocks. Standing by a boulder that could smash a car, Roure tells in English aboutthat night. "We saw it coming down, these rocks, and they move like feathers." The aftermath of this South American country's worst disaster transfixedabout 60 Iowa missionaries last month. During their visit, they struggled for words to describe the catastrophe that swept down the mountain called El Avilafor two horrifying days in December. "I can't imagine what that was like," said Steve Drake of Ankeny. The mudslides killed an estimated 30,000 people, almost as many people as theUnited States lost in battle in the Korean War. Not since a cyclone inBangladesh in 1991 had a natural disaster caused such carnage. Many residentsstill must depend on relief agencies for food rations. The missionaries from First Assembly of God in Des Moines visited the lastweek of February, more than two months after the disaster. Before the Iowansreached the barrio of El Pauji, where they would worship and run a medicalclinic, they could see why a disaster here would be more deadly than in Iowa. On the hills and mountains around Caracas, the capital of 3 million people,small rancho houses of lightweight red clay brick stand next to and on top of 
 
each other, up and down steep slopes. The homes, built by squatters, cover manyhills and reach far up mountainsides. "They just built wherever they could," said Pastor Alexis Mora, the Iowans'host at Fuente de Vida (Fountain of Life) Church in El Pauji, one of the barrioson the slopes surrounding Caracas. Many of the heavily poplulated mountainsides, ravines and alluvial plainsalong the coast were not suitable for habitation, especially not at such anextreme degree, said Matthew Larsen, a hydrologist with the U.S. GeologicalSurvey who has studied the Venezuela disaster. "It's just unfortunate that so much building was allowed to go on in thesesites," Larsen said. "What happened there shouldn't have happened. God made thestorm, and man made the disaster." Rainfall like northern Venezuela had in December comes a couple of timesevery century or two, he said. But the meeting of the mountain and the sea makesfor a "geologically dynamic and active setting" where floods and landslides areinevitable. El Avila rises 8,500 feet a few miles from the Caribbean. Moist air ascendingso rapidly over the mountain can produce violent weather. Steep slopes sendwater and earth cascading into canyons and gullies. The ravines and plains at the bottom are no place to live. In the coastal resort area of La Guaira, across El Avila from Caracas and ElPauji, mile after mile of devastation shocked missionaries on their way tominister and clean up in an area inundated by mud. Empty luxury hotels and tattered billboards advertising sunscreen hinted atthe tourist attraction the gorgeous beaches once were. Bathing beauties and sandcastles were replaced by buses buried in mud, vehicles so crushed and twistedthey were indistinguishable as car or truck. In five swaths of destruction 75 to 150 yards wide, rivers of boulders mashedeverything in their path from the mountain to the coast. The terrain and largebuildings protected some areas from destruction, but hardly any escaped the mud.After two months of cleanup, countless homes and shops remained filled with mud. Anderson Ortega, who showed some of the visiting Iowans around, went to work that Wednesday at a hotel by the beach, perhaps a mile from his home. When themud washed through, he said, "My family was at home. I didn't know if they werealive or dead." 
 
The disaster paralyzed the coastal region so thoroughly that Ortega did notsee his family until Saturday. Their home was on a steep hill, away from theprimary flow of water, mud and rocks. His mother had minimized damage bypounding holes near the floor in downstream walls. That way the mud rushedthrough the house rather than piling up. Still, they were moving out. Midoly Jean Luis, who escaped the onslaught with her husband and two sons,shuddered at the memory of that day. "I think that was the last day for me," recalled Luis, who speaks English andis expecting her third child. "I wasn't scared about me. I was scared about thechildren. We thank God that all the children are saved." Her family was among 700 refugees in barracks at the Fuente Tiuna army basein Caracas. The Venezuelan government plans to relocate refugees inland from the crowdedbarrios around Caracas and the coastal region where the devastation was theworst. Some of the homeless don't want to go, not to mention the many barrioresidents who remain in harm's way. "Now the problem is relocating these people, and it will take years andyears," said Mora, the pastor, gesturing to a mountainside covered with ranchos. While the government works on long-term solutions such as relocation,Venezuela faces a monumental challenge in caring for more than 100,000 refugees. The Iowa missionaries visited a makeshift shelter in Guarenas where RosaAguirre and her children were staying. Their quarters in an unfinished postoffice were separated from other refugees by hanging bedsheets. They barely hadroom for a twin bed and a twin mattress on the concrete floor. They had atelevision but few other belongings. Aguirre was worried about all the rainfall the morning of Dec. 17, so shetook her three children with her to work cleaning houses. "When I came back fromwork in the afternoon, all the homes had fallen," she said through aninterpreter. "To the glory of God we were all together and safe when it allhappened." Relief agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and theRed Cross continue to provide assistance. The Iowa missionaries visited the village of Santa Barbara three hours eastof Caracas, downstream from a dam that burst. Residents lined up at a Red Crosstent for food rations: bags of beans, corn meal, rice, flour, pasta and bottlesof vegetable oil.
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