PUERTO RICO: The worst tragedy ever
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from October 1985.
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Anxious survivors of a devastated shantytown kept a vigil Tuesday as soldiers and civil defense workers searched for missing residents in twisted wooden shacks and a lake of mud. Puerto Rico's Governor visited them and lamented "the worst tragedy ever to hit our island."
There were 66 confirmed deaths, and authorities said hundreds of people were missing and thousands were in shelters in the aftermath of widespread mudslides and floods triggered by a tropical deluge.
National Guardsmen said 18 bodies had been recovered from Mameyes, a half-milesquare, impoverished neighborhood and the hardest hit community on the island. Some 400 wood-and-tin homes came crashing down the hillside in a wave of mud early Monday, after a tropical front dumped seven inches of rain in a 10-hour period on the south coast. The front developed into tropical storm Isabel after passing this island's western tip late Monday, and the Bahamas government issued a storm watch for some islands Tuesday.
The weather here was sunny and clear, and hundreds of people watched the excavation at Mameyes.
"It looked incredible. The houses were torn apart like they were pieces of paper," said Juan Colon, an unemployed youth who said he got away from his home after hearing what sounded like explosions before dawn Monday.
"I heard what sounded like a strong explosion, and then all I could see were rocks and mud," added Presbitero Rosas, who said he believed his two small sons were buried in the mud and debris. Civil Defense workers speculated that the explosions were small propane gas tanks used for kitchen stoves.
Gov. Rafael Hernandez Colon, who declared a state of emergency Monday, sent 300 National Guardsmen to Ponce. Police Superintendent Andres Garcia Arache said all island police officers were called to duty Tuesday.
The U.S. Army was sending heavy equipment and engineers from a fort in the north-central part of the island to help in the excavation at Mameyes. The governor said he would also ask Washington and even Mexico, still digging out from the earthquakes two weeks ago that killed thousands, for technical help.
National Guard officers at the scene said they were moving slowly in the excavation because they didn't want to trigger more mudslides.
"There could be up to 500 people under these tons of wood and mud," national guard Col. Johnny Rosado said.
Hernandez Colon, who flew to Ponce in the Governor's helicopter Tuesday to visit the Mameyes area for the second time since the mudslide, said he was told by local police they believed 200 bodies were in the debris.
"It's difficult to estimate the number of dead at this moment. The landslides have covered the entire area.
"This is the worst tragedy ever to hit our island in its history. It fills me with pain, as governor and as a Ponce native," Hernandez Colon said. The Governor on Monday viewed from his helicopter the salvaging of two cars carrying six people who drowned after a bridge was washed out near Coamo. He later learned that the dead were three close friends of his and three police officers who had tried to rescue them. Estimates of the number of residents in the Mameyes community ranged from 800 to 2,000. The governor urged neighbors and survivors to tell police about any missing relatives.
National Guard spokesman William Muniz said workers freed a boy, between 7 and 14 years old, from under a collapsed shack at about 4 a.m. "He was taken to a hospital and his situation isn't critical. I believe he will be saved," Muniz said, adding it was unlikely there were other survivors. "We haven't heard any shouts or seen any movement," he said. The Mameyes community and surrounding neighborhoods of larger wooden homes are in a gorge below a 1,500foot-high mountain, connected with the rest of Ponce of a single-lane road. While shantytowns are more common in poorer Caribbean nations such as the neighboring Dominican Republic and Haiti, there are dozens scattered through urban areas of Puerto Rico.
Islandwide unemployment is 21 percent, but the jobless rate is often as high as 75 percent in such areas. At least 12 people were confirmed drowned early Monday when a river floodwaters surged through their community near El Tuque beach here. Officials said damage would be in the millions of dollars. Some banana, coffee and sugar fields were reportedly underwater. Six bridges were washed out, the Department of Transportation said.
The Red Cross said 4,149 people spent Monday night in 33 shelters, and that 522 families said their homes were damaged beyond repair. The telephone company said 32,000 customers were without service late Monday, and that returning service would be slow because equipment was damaged by the rains and floods.
The electric utility said because of damaged equipment, it was rotating power outages of several hours each among most cities.
