Mourning in El Salvador

El Salvador began three days of national mourning on Tuesday for the approximate 130 victims of hurricane Ida, the country’s national radio said.

Responding to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ida, government agencies and private enterprises in El Salvador are trying to re-establish communications, utilities, and roads damaged by landslides and flooding in the Central American nation.

Rescue workers combed through mud, rubble and debris in search of survivors from raging floods and landslides that killed at least 136 people, after a late-season hurricane devastated swaths of Central America.

Rescue efforts focused on eastern San Vicente department, where 72 people were still missing after three days of driving rain, 60 of them in Verapaz alone, officials said late Monday.

A civil protection official updated the death toll from the storm from 130 to 136, adding that more than 13,000 people fled their homes, some 1,800 homes were damaged or destroyed and 18 bridges and many roads were washed away by the floods.

Although Hurricane Ida did not hit the country of some seven million people directly, it brought heavy rain that affected the entire region.

President Mauricio Funes visited Verapaz, where he vowed that “this time, the government will not leave the people alone.”

He has requested the national assembly to reallocate 150 million dollars from an international loan of 300 million designed for anti-crisis measures.