Concerns for Salvador survivors

Thousands of families are living in camps

By Mike Lanchin in San Salvador

A week after the earthquake in El Salvador which killed almost 700 people, and left many unaccounted for, there is concern over the deteriorating conditions in which thousands of homeless people are living.

Many of the 50,000 people left destitute by the quake are now cramped into refugee centres around the country.

Doctors fear outbreaks of epidemics

Hundreds of volunteers have been mobilised this weekend across El Salvador as churches, community groups, and even local radio and television stations, organise collections and distribute food and medicines to the survivors.

There have been complaints that the relief effort is being hampered by bureaucracy, and that some areas are being ignored for political reasons.

Food shortage

At the largest refugee camp set up on the edge of the capital, survivors continue arriving from outlying villages, and officials are warning that conditions are increasingly insalubrious.

Teams from the Mexican army who flew in with tonnes of food for the camps earlier in the week now say that supplies are running out.

Food supplies are running low

Medics have launched a vaccination campaign among the survivors to prevent outbreaks of epidemics, especially dengue fever, which last year killed 35 people.

Caravans of aid have been sent to outlying areas by volunteer groups amid complaints that the government's relief effort is being hampered by red tape bureaucracy.

A spokesman for the official relief effort has admitted that the scale of the disaster has slowed down the response.

Danger not over

But the local authorities in some of the worst-affected areas have also said that they are being ignored by central government simply because they belong to a different political party.

The full cost of the damage caused by the massive quake is still not known, but with more than 120,000 houses in ruins, the reconstruction bill could run to more than $1bn.

Coffee growers have said that about 20% of this year's harvest, which earns the country vital hard cash, has been lost in the quake.

Although the aftershocks from the earthquake have slowly diminished, the danger may not yet be over.

Weather forecasters are predicting freak rainfall over the next few days, which they say could lead to further fatal mudslides.