Hurricane Mitch Damage, Honduras

Hurricane Mitch Damage,
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
September 1999

It has been almost a year since Hurricane Mitch devastated Honduras. Damage is still very evident when you walk or drive around Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela. These are some areas with in walking distance of the hotels we stayed in in Tegucigalpa.

	Raw sewage from a broken sewer line is spilling into a street and running into the Choulateca River. It's been that way since Mitch. We walked down to the riverbank (about 1/2 a block from here) and watched people on the opposite bank washing their clothing in the river. There is some structural damage to the building in the background.
Massive erosion is visible in this view of the Choulateca River. The flood plain used to contain homes which were washed away in the massive flooding. In the lower left foreground, you see the edge of a set of steps which now lead to no where. The steps just drop off into space, street and sidewalks to which they were connected no longer exist. The drop off was a good 10-15 feet in height.
	Another view along the river shows the size of the boulders moved by the rushing waters of the Choulateca. I am 5'6" tall and the boulder in the foreground was as tall as I am. Slightly to the left of center, partially obscured by a plant, is the the remains of piling that held up a building. The "exterior" walls you see on the buildings are actually walls that separated structures. There were one or more sets of buildings between those remaining and the river. All were washed away during the storm.

These views show more damage to riverside buildings. You can see where multi-story buildings just disintegrated into the raging river. The water you see in the foreground is raw sewage running into the river. Although not visible in the photographs, we saw large numbers of buzzards circling over the river banks and the river itself. One local resident remarked that they still find the bodies of victims in the river.

The large green and brown patch in the center of the hillside used to be a housing area similar to the ones visible to the right and left. It was completely washed away during Hurricane Mitch. The tall building is a government office that survived the storm and the turquoise building to the right of it is the penitentiary. It suffered flooding during the storm. This was viewable from our hotel balcony.

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