A relief convoy organised by Concern and APSO (the Agency for Personal Services Overseas) left Honduras at dawn yesterday for San Salvador. Concern's Ros O'Sullivan reported to head office in Dublin that the team intended to carry out a rapid assessment of the hardest hit areas today "both within the capital and its environs" and to establish how the national and international relief agencies were responding.
Word had come through from the Irish Embassy in Mexico that "APSO and the Department of Foreign Affairs have earmarked £400,000 for the emergency - £200,000 for the Red Cross and £200,000 for Trocaire, who have partners and projects in the country".
Trocaire director Mr Justin Kilcullen has appealed to the Irish public for support. "Trocaire's El Salvador appeal is designed to give immediate emergency relief to those people who have lost their family and homes," he said. Once an assessment of the situation had been made the NGO would be setting long-term development projects in place.
Goal's relief effort in El Salvador is being co-ordinated by Darren Hanniffy, the former Offaly hurler, who works as an engineer for the agency in Honduras.
Speaking from San Salvador yesterday, he described the conditions: "There were three major earth tremors last night, which gave us a few anxious moments. I visited the area just north-west of San Salvador where the major landslide occurred. It was a numbing experience to see the scale of the devastation." The earthquake lasted 44 seconds, but the landslide took only 20 seconds to wipe out "an entire upper- and middle-class housing estate. Cars were smashed to pancakes".
Mr Hanniffy said he expects mortality figures to double.
"Goal initially offered help to the municipality, which set up its own co-ordinating headquarters on tables and chairs in the middle of the street," he said.
His colleagues in Honduras had organised three emergency lorry loads for the stricken El Salvadorans. Mr Hanniffy and his colleagues travelled to Santa Elena in the Usulutan province in the south to supervise the distribution of aid. The scene there was devastating. Ninety-five per cent of the housing is made up of mud huts, and more than 90 per cent of those were flattened. The air was filled with dust and there was rubble everywhere: "Temperatures are extremely hot, ranging from 35 to 40 degrees during the day, but down to five to 10 degrees at night, which means it is very cold indeed for the local people." About 6,000 people have been left homeless in Santa Elena and nearby San Augustin, Mr Hanniffy said.
The Dublin-based Latin America Solidarity Centre has called on the Government to channel aid to El Salvador through its agencies on the ground. A fund has been set up by the group, and the public is invited to send donations to El Salvador Awareness, Romero Centre, St Clare's Convent, 101 Harold's Cross Road, Dublin 6 - or by direct debit to AIB, Main Street, Rathfarnham Village, Dublin 14.