Eighty-year-old María Estela Villalta says she lives in
fear.  "I don't want to see the sea, I don't want to see the
river," she says as her eyes fill with tears.

The night of November 7, a turbulent stream from the Huiza River
shook her from her sleep and took away the few possessions she had.
"I could barely walk, my legs were shivering because the water was
up to here," she recalls as she points to her waist, and starts
shaking again.

"I lifted one of my granddaughters with one arm, and then I
heard the other one crying.  I couldn't find her. It was dark,
I could not see her.  Suddenly, I saw that the water was
dragging her downstream.  I grabbed her by her hair with my
other hand; I wanted to save her from the river," she continues
while glancing at her four-year-old granddaughter who is playing
with her sister.

On that same day, a low pressure system caused unprecedented
rains that triggered floods and landslides.  In less than
three hours ocean waters overflowed the Huiza River, which
destroyed bridges, roads and homes, and killed hundreds in its
path.

"I can't see anything; I lost my glasses and my dentures
too.  But look at her, she is not missing anything," she says
pointing to her granddaughter.

María Estela and her family have been sheltered in a
temporary collective centre located in the small town of
Melara.

Almost one month after the disaster, 49 collective centres are
still open, providing shelter to 3,198 persons who lost all their
belongings and are waiting to be relocated.

IOM staff conduct daily monitoring visits to the collective
centres, as part of its emergency role of monitoring and managing
the centres.

"The first day I visited the affected areas I found flooded
homes, the smell was unbearable in all of the towns.  A very
kind man showed me around the houses, or what was left of them, and
when we arrived at the river, he showed me a bunch of bricks
– all that remained of his home," says Victor García,
a team member of IOM's monitoring task force.

García says that the community was organized and
prepared, this is why the man who showed him around took refuge on
higher ground and was not swept away by the river.  "From
where he was, he saw the river swallow his house and all of his
belongings.  That must have been very painful, it certainly
impressed me," adds Garcia.

"When you visit these communities you realize nothing is the
same.  It does not resemble what we see on television, the
devastation is by far more severe.  The people are anxiously
waiting to speak to us, to find relief," says Yanira
Hernández, who is part of IOM's task force and who has
visited several shelters in the department of La Libertad.

"In the immediate aftermath, the affected population was
desperate.  Aid wasn't arriving fast enough; they did not want
surveys, they wanted help.  Three or four days after the IOM
monitoring began, their attitude started to change," explains
Roxana Alvarenga, technical supervisor of IOM's collective
centres.

"I remember one shelter that I visited where several children
were sick with diarrhea.  I reported this to the local
authorities, and on my next visit I saw that the health authorities
had dealt with the problem.  That made us feel that our
reports were indeed valuable, and that our job was vital for the
people," recalls García.

But monitoring visits to the shelters were only the beginning of
an information chain required to meet the needs of the population
at the collective centres. 

"There were instances where two different government agencies
had visited the same centre, had filed their reports but the
information did not match.  Getting to the bottom of these
matters and fixing the data took a long time, sometimes, many days
we finished work at 3:00 a.m.," points out Rodolfo Landaverde,
IOM's officer at a collective centre.

Landaverde says the IOM presence has helped turn this problem
around. "Our presence in the field has allowed us to work closely
with the government agencies.  This made everyone's job easier
and more accurate," he explains.

"These are difficult times, but the monitors have helped us a
great deal," says 84-year-old Juana Rogelia Gálvez, who must
start her life again.

"We have food and we are safe here," adds Juana Rogelia, as she
lights a fire inside four large stones that serve as an improvised
stove to cook some beans for herself, her son and her
granddaughter.

For more information, please contact:

IOM El Salvador, Press Office

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