Tragedy in La Avispa

By Matt

Recently I traveled with some of the Diaconia staff to the community of La Avispa (the wasp). The long and bumpy road to this remote community cuts up into the mountains and passes some steep-sided valleys. A couple of months ago, just after we had arrived in Honduras, a disaster struck the community of La Avispa. In the valley above the village a large embankment of rock and soil had formed because of an earlier landslide. One night during a torrential rainstorm water built up behind the embankment until it burst around midnight. The wall of water trees and rocks ripped through La Avispa sweeping away houses and people. The water passed just in front of the Christian Reformed Church and many of the victims were members of this church. The first picture which looks like a dry river bed is where several houses once stood just in front of the church.



The purpose of our trip was to bring food and supplied to the people who lost their homes. In all we were able to supply 15 families thanks to donations from North American churches. It was incredible and humbling to listen to the stories of the survivors. Many people woke up to find themselves being swept away along with their houses. Others told about how after escaping the deluge they gathered on a nearby hill and prayed together in the rain and darkness. My understanding is that on that night 6 people died, including 3 children. In the next picture we are handing out supplies to victims in front of the church building.



The chronic deforestation of this part of Honduras played a part in this tragedy. Wealthy landowners have often hired the poor to cut down the forests of Honduras illegally. The lumber is harvested and sold, and then the bare mountainsides are used as pastures for cattle. The problem is that without a single tree root to prevent erosion the steep slopes give way after a heavy rain causing damage, and in some cases creating unstable embankments in the ravines. The pictures here show that the slopes above La Avispa have been almost totally deforested (some trees remain near the top). You can also see that the rains resulted in many new landslides.



The next picture shows a closer view of where the embankment burst and ripped out many large trees. One community member mentioned that the government is planning on reforesting some of the problematic slopes above La Avispa.



David and I are thinking about doing some tree planting activities in this area as well through the agriculture and environment program. Another more immediate need that we see is many farmers who lost all of their tools and supplies for working the land, planting, and harvesting. Hopefully we can work something out to help in that area as well.
This event shows that when people don’t take into account the well-being of the larger community, especially in terms of the management of natural resources, everyone loses. It also reinforced the importance of the Ag/Environment program at Diaconia which emphasizes our responsibility to be good stewards of Gods creation.