Destruction in Managua
Diocesan Press Service. January 26, 1973 [73019]
Hugh McCullum, editor of The Canadian Churchman, Toronto.
(NOTE: The following article was written by Hugh McCullum, editor of The Canadian Churchman, Toronto. He spent 10 days in Managua in order to give a first-hand report on relief work for The Canadian Churchman, the DPS, and the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief & Interchurch Aid.)
Two days before Christmas, Managua, capital of the Central American Republic of Nicaragua was flattened in a devastating earthquake that destroyed 80 percent of the city of 440,000 and left the tiny (population 2,000,000) country reeling.
With its infrastructure destroyed, the country -- for Managua is Nicaragua -- faces a rebuilding task of an enormity none can yet fully comprehend, even the Somoza family which has dictatorially ruled a nation, 95 percent Roman Catholic, for more than 40 years.
Can this conservative, authoritarian regime move progressively enough to change the face of a country suffering from poverty (more than 250,000 people were already facing starvation from a year-long drought when the earthquake struck), destruction and political unrest and where do the churches, long feuding with each other, fit in?
The statistics are mind-boggling. Damage totaling more than $850,000,000 was inflicted on the city, at least 10,000 died the morning of Dec. 23, more than 250,000 people are without homes, 50, 000 dwellings collapsed, there are no schools, hospitals or government buildings left, 95 percent of small businesses were wiped out (ironically 80 percent of big business survived), 500, 000 pounds of food will be needed daily for the next 12 months for the 285, 000 "damnificados " -- literally " damaged ones " -- now being fed by the government and voluntary agencies.
No one is starving to death, predicted epidemics have not materialized, lights and water are back in operation. On the short term Managua -- and Nicaragua -- will survive.
It is in the long-term that the future of this country, long propped up by massive American support, exists. It is in the long-term planning that the churches and voluntary agencies will be most help.
The city is almost certain to be rebuilt where it presently lies in a heap of twisted rubble -- the Somoza family has too much to lose financially to do otherwise -- despite the warnings of geologists and seismologists that four distinct faults lie under its volcanic surface.
But how it is rebuilt, what its face will be, how its character and life-style will develop is the key.
Here the churches can be of great assistance because the people of Managua, knowing that their city is dead, aware that it will be rebuilt want the best they can get. They deserve it.
They must be helped materially but the people there must determine their own destiny and their churches, moving to indigenization, can be the agencies to a better life for Nicaragua.