rain, rain and more rain

It's been a rainy couple of weeks in Guatemala lately, and it has caused chaos -especially for the road network. There's been a lot more rain than usual this year, and the tropical storm at the end of May left most of the country saturated with water. So when we had another week of heavy rain, it caused a huge number of landslides. The worst affected was the Inter American highway which winds it's way up through the mountains towards Mexico. Many sections of the road are cut out of the mountains - and with the effect of the heavy rains (and deforestation) landslides made several sections completely unpassable. The emergency and rescue services were overrun, and weren't able to reach some sections of the road for a couple of days. In one incident a bus was virtually buried by a landslide. As rescue workers and locals tried to dig people out, many of them were also buried by a second mudslide. Another incident saw thousands of cars and buses trapped overnight on the highway between 2 landslides with emergency services unable to get to them.
The road is now passable again, but hundreds of people are still living in refuges across the country. The government is just beginning to organise collection points for emergency supplies and donations.
In a country so frequently affected by extreme weather and natural disasters, it's easy to see why it finds it difficult to move beyond emergency responses and asking for aid.