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In Brief
THIS EMERGENCY APPEAL SEEKS CHF 487,000
(USD 379,798 OR EUR 315,055) IN CASH, KIND, OR SERVICES TO ASSIST 21,000 BENEFICIARIES (4,200 FAMILIES) FOR 4 MONTHS
CHF 149,400 (USD 114,820 OR EUR 96,262) was allocated from the Federation's Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to mount the initial response to this operation. Unearmarked funds to reimburse the DREF are encouraged.
The situation
El Salvador has been struck by two natural disasters in the last week. Firstly, the Ilamatepec volcano, which has shown increased activity in recent months, began hurling out hot lava rocks on 1 October, killing at least two people and forcing more than 2,000 to flee. Secondly, the country has experienced heavy rains, flooding and landslides as a result of the passage of Hurricane Stan through the region. To date, rains brought on by Hurricane Stan have killed almost 100 people in Mexico and Central America, including 49 in El Salvador.
The Ilamatepec volcano, also known as Santa Ana, located 66 kilometres (41 miles) west of the capital, began rumbling and emitting thick plumes of smoke that reached more than 15 kilometres (nine miles) into the sky just after 8:30 a.m. (1430 GMT) on Saturday, 1 October. Military emergency sirens blasted, calling for an immediate area evacuation of the nearby towns and soon after the volcano began hurling glowing lava and ash from its crater. The volcano began to expel magma on the side of the town of San Blas, while the ash was carried by a south-southwesterly wind. Hot lava rocks expelled by the volcano ranged from the size of a football to the size of a car.
The volcano has been rumbling for days, and on Friday some 30 families living in the area were evacuated after columns of sulphuric smoke rose from the crater. Officials with the National Emergency Committee (COEN) said that by 1 p.m. Saturday 2,250 people had been evacuated from the danger zone. At least seven people were injured by red hot lava rocks spewed into the air by the eruption, the national police said. Two people were killed when 200 residents were evacuated from the town of Palo Campana, located just two kilometres from the crater. Residents fled aboard trucks when a flood of boiling water from an underground lake rushed down from the crater from three directions. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture estimates that some 7,000 km=B2 of the country's coffee crops have been covered in ash and have likely been destroyed.
The National Emergency Committee has declared a red alert in the area within 4,000 metres of the volcano, and a yellow alert in other nearby areas. The country's civil protection forces have been deployed and are operational.
Some 20,000 people live in the area surrounding the volcano. At 2,381 meters (7,812 feet) above sea level, the Santa Ana volcano is the highest point in El Salvador and the largest volcano in the country. It last erupted in 1904.
The rainy season in El Salvador generally runs from the end of May through to the middle of October. This year, the rainy season began in mid May and has been particularly heavy; according to SNET, the country received 500 percent more rain during September than the historical average for that month. In addition, in May the country experienced heavy rains due to the passage of the first hurricane of the hurricane season in the eastern north pacific.
Hurricane Stan, the 18th named storm of an extremely
busy Atlantic hurricane season, first formed as a tropical depression off the east coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. It quickly strengthened to a tropical storm as it moved across the peninsula, bringing heavy rains to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and southern Mexico. The storm continued to build strength once it was again over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and became a category one hurricane just before coming ashore in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Rains brought by Stan were particularly heavy on the Pacific coast of Central America. According to the National Service of Territorial Studies, the rains are expected to continue for the next 24 to 48 hours and additional flooding is expected.
The National Emergency Committee issued a red alert for El Salvador as the heavy rains caused several of the country's main rivers to overflow. Damages have been particularly severe in the departments of San Miguel and Usulután, in the south of the country, and in the departments of San Salvador and Sonsonate, in the north of the country. Additional flooding is a concern in the capital city of San Salvador, where the grounds have been saturated with flood waters. Evacuations are being carried out in particularly vulnerable parts of the city due to the risk of landslides in the areas around the San Salvador volcano. The areas around the Coatepeque and Guija lakes in the department of Santa Ana are also at risk of flooding. To date, 49 deaths have been registered as a result of the flooding and the volcanic eruption, and some 32,045 residents have been evacuated to 309 shelters set up in the areas.
For further information specifically related to this operation please contact:
In El Salvador: Salvadorean Red Cross Society; email secretaria.ejecutiva@cruzrojasal.sv, phone (503) 219-2200, fax (503) 222-7758
In Panama, Nelson Castaño, Head of Pan American Disaster Response Unit; email ifrcpa07@ifrc.org, phone (507) 316-1001, fax (507) 316-1082
In Geneva: Luis Luna, Federation Regional Officer, Americas Department, Geneva; email luis.luna@ifrc.org, phone (41 22) 730-4274, fax (41 22) 733-0392
All International Federation assistance seeks to adhere to the Code of Conduct and is committed to the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response in delivering assistance to the most vulnerable. For support to or for further information concerning Federation programmes or operations in this or other countries, or for a full description of the national society profile, please access the Federation's website at http://www.ifrc.org For longer-term programmes, please refer to the Federation's Annual Appeal.
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