A billion in Haiti quake aid, virtually nothing for Mexico
http://www.mydesert.com/article/20100516/NEWS0805/5160327/-1...
May 16, 2010
Nicole C. Brambila
MEXICALI, Mexico — International relief topped $1 billion to help earthquake-ravaged Haiti, with nearly $2 million coming from Riverside County.
Next to nothing was sent to an area of Mexico about 120 miles southeast of the Coachella Valley following its devastating Easter earthquake.
“It's really disappointing as a community that we can help Haiti and Chile and China, but we've forgotten about the people in our own backyard,” said
José Gonzalez, who is in charge of the donation system at Indio-based Martha's Village & Kitchen. The nonprofit group has donated more than
$100,000 in supplies to victims of the Mexican quake.
The magnitude-7.2 Easter quake that killed two people, injured more than 100 and collapsed a Mexicali hospital, which had to be evacuated, also
knocked out the Delta Canal used to irrigate farmland and ripped up roads, making access to those hardest hit a challenge.
Six weeks later, the quake has left roughly 2,500 people homeless, Mexican officials estimate. Many have since found shelter with relatives or
friends, but a couple hundred continue camping out in pop-up tents and makeshift structures.
“The main concern right now is: How long am I going to be in a tent?” said Rosario Martinez, an El Chimi resident who lives in a makeshift camp near
the epicenter.
The April 4 temblor likely will lead to more hunger and poverty in the mostly poor, agrarian area that saw its crops destroyed by flooding when the
canal ruptured during the quake.
Martha's Village and Father Joe's Villages have donated more than $100,000 in supplies — food, water, bath kits, antiseptic — for border town Mexicali
despite the fact the organization is $1.5 million in the hole this fiscal year. Father Joe Carroll, Martha's president, opted to forgo his salary.
The world witnessed two devastating quakes in the first months of the new year with Haiti and Chile.
The Jan. 12 magnitude-7 quake in Haiti killed roughly 230,000 people and left more than 1 million homeless. Less than two months later, on Feb. 27, an
8.8-magnitude quake off the coast of Chile killed nearly 500 and also displaced more than 1 million people.
The international community has responded with money and aid to both countries.
The American Red Cross has collected more than $445 million for Haiti. And the American Red Cross of Riverside County has taken in nearly $2 million
countywide, including the $1 million raised with the “Hit for Haiti” fundraiser at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells in March.
Mexico, however, lacks a separate fund for aid with the American Red Cross.
Mexicali, Carroll said, isn't going to draw international support like Haiti did. If Southern California doesn't respond to the need, who will?
“We're not saying it's worse than (Haiti),” he said. “We're saying it's in our backyard.
“A lot of people (in the Coachella Valley) came from Mexicali and Calexico. They come from that area. For us, it's personal.”
Carroll and Martha's Village launched an awareness campaign April 19 and started sending supply trucks to the border.
“They're the forgotten people,” Carroll said. “They're right next door to us and it's like it never happened.”
Residents terror-struck
The largest quake to strike the region since the mid-1950s, the Easter temblor centered outside of Mexicali, Mexico, was so intense that it jolted
much of Southern California and was felt as far north as Las Vegas.
It ripped through the only road going into the rural Mexican communities, and in its wake flooded homes and a lifetime of memories.
It lasted roughly a minute, but it struck terror into the hearts of residents who described being thrown about and unable to stand during the fierce
shaking.
Thousands of aftershocks — some measuring above magnitude-5 — have since rattled the area, slowing inspections on both sides of the border.
Although they've been given the OK to return to their homes, some have refused, choosing instead to sleep outside, terrified.
The quake struck arbitrarily.
Some homes looked unscathed.
Others looked as though terrorized by a tornado — personal belongings destroyed and scattered about.
Some were shoved off their foundations and now lean in unnatural poses.
And still others bear the scars — concrete cracks that snake up the walls.
“It felt like the earth was Jell-O,” said Sonia Medina, an El Chimi resident who has lived in a pop-up tent since the April 4 quake.
At 80 years old, Consuelo Chairez will have to start over.
A sign posted on her window in red letters reads, “Insegura/insecure.”
It means Chairez, who struggles to shovel piles of mud away from her home in house shoes, cannot return to the home she's lived in for nearly 30
years. She still sneaks back into her home to cook her meals but is living with family.
“I don't know how I can leave my house,” Chairez said in Spanish. “I'm going to have to leave it. I don't want to, but I'm going to have to.”
Mexican response slow
Baja California Norte Gov. José Guadalupe Osun Millán reported in the Mexican press Wednesday that the quake destroyed nearly 1,000 homes. Another
1,300 homes were damaged.
The government hopes to place 80 families in new homes this month and construct another 900, most located in the hardest-hit rural towns outside
Mexicali, the Mexican paper La Voz reported.
It's not clear if Chairez will be one of them.
The Mexican Red Cross did not make an international appeal, saying it could effectively respond to the needs, said Mat Morgan, a spokesman with the
American Red Cross in Washington, D.C.
Rafael González, spokesman for the Mexican Red Cross in Mexico City, did not respond to a request for comment.
Residents of the rural communities in the Valle de Mexicali, about 30 miles south of the border, said help was slow in coming and the aid that did
arrive came from U.S. churches and the Mexican government.
The Mexican Army, which set up two shelters, has been serving three hot meals daily since April 13, said Capt. Narciso Valadez with the 23rd Motorized
Cavalry Regiment stationed in Mexicali.
“Our mission is to feed people,” Valadez said in Spanish.
Emergency food could not come soon enough.
Faced with dwindling supplies, El Chimi residents pooled together the food they could salvage from their homes to help feed each other until they
could petition the Army to make deliveries to their camp, said Martinez, who helped organize the neighborhood.
“He's not interested because he's not living in a tent,” Medina, an El Chimi resident, said of the governor. “We've been struggling with nothing;
without water.
“People from the churches in the (United) States have been the ones coming to help.”
With their water mains broken and sections of the Delta Canal caved in, many residents went nearly three weeks without potable water, said Elvia de
Zarate, church secretary at Señor de la Miscericordia in Ejido Nuevo Leon, the staging center for emergency distribution in the valley.
Mexican farmers could lose a third of their crop this season because of flooding, worsening an already shaken economy.
Built on top of the Mexican Delta, the homes in El Chimi trembled, and then the violent shaking rocked many off their foundation.
Others sank into the earth, shrinking the homes' height by 2, sometimes 3, feet.
And still other homes became encased in mud after sulfur water burst from below ground into houses like a volcano.
“Pura agua,” said Marie Elena Chairez, who has lived in her home more than 40 years. “I've already cried a lot.”
Jaime Chairez said it took nearly a week to drain his mother's home.
Inspectors started a month ago, first checking government buildings and schools.
Heliodoro Jimenez, a coordinator with Dirección Estatal de Protección Civil, estimated that he and his team of eight inspectors would complete home
inspections in the next two weeks to determine which were safe.
“The people on unstable ground will be helped more,” Jimenez told a homeowner Tuesday.
Time of need everywhere
With budgetary woes brought on by the slumped economy in the U.S., Carroll said he knows that some might criticize his giving in Mexico at a time when
every dollar in the Coachella Valley could help save programs that will likely be threatened if donations don't improve.
In addition to the $100,000-plus in supplies Martha's and Father Joe's Villages have given to Mexico, they've also collected roughly $13,000 in
donations — $2,000 from the Coachella Valley and the rest from the San Diego area.
“If everyone kicked in some money, we could take care of it ourselves,” he said.
And then he added, “Whatever I lose in Mexico, we'll get back 100-fold. It'll come back to us.
“God's work always pays off.”
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Additional Facts
About Martha's
Martha's Village & Kitchen in Indio began a public awareness campaign in April to provide more than $100,000 in aid relief to México following the
magnitude-7.2 quake that rocked Mexicali, which is roughly 120 miles from the Coachella Valley.
Established in 1990, the nonprofit provides more than 300,000 meals annually and offers emergency shelter to more than 220 of the Coachella Valley's
homeless population.
How to help
Martha's Village and Kitchen in Indio is raising money to help those left homeless after the April 4 Easter quake in Mexicali.
With a second shipment of supplies coming from México City, residents really need building supplies now.
To date, roughly $13,000 has been raised. About $2,000 is from the Coachella Valley while the remaining donations come from the San Diego area.
To make a donation, visit http://www.marthasvillage.org or send a check marked “Earthquake Relief” to 83791 Date Ave., Indio, CA 92201-4737.
For more information, call (760) 347-4741.
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