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NICARAGUA

Masaya Trembles:The Lessons of a Disaster

JOS LUIS ROCHA

Nicaragua's most densely populated area is riddled with fault lines.

Recent earthquakes in Masaya offer us more lessons on how to

reduce the dangers of living there that nobody seems to want to

learn.

Should we all just move to the Caribbean coast?

At midday on July 6, an earthquake whose epicenter was in the volcanic lagoonknown as Apoyo, just 6 km from the city of Masaya, registered 5.9 on the Richterscale. It caused destruction in Plan de Laguna and Valle de Laguna in theimmediate Apoyo area, in Masaya itself and in neighboring Catarina, Diri,

Diriomo, Diriomito, San Juan de Oriente, Nandasmo, Niquinohomo and QuebradaHonda. Most of the latter are small towns from the colonial period and some areeven pre-Colombian indigenous villages, and are located on the "Meseta de losPueblos," a densely populated coffee-producing plateau southwest of Masaya.

The colonial city of Granada was also affected and the tremor was even feltstrongly in Managua, 38 km away.

The population had not yet recovered from the shock when the zone wasshaken by another earthquake the next evening, this one measuring 5.2 on theRichter scale, which tripled the number of evacuees to over 4,000. "We sawweird bubbling in the water," said one inhabitant from the lagoon-sidecommunities. "Then it seemed like a blender. Everything shook like it wasboiling."

Still in a state of shock, a woman from Diriomito said, "My whole housecollapsed. Only Spider Man survived; his poster was on the only wall that didn'tfall down."

Again the bowels of the earth shifted in Nicaragua, land of lakes andvolcanoes and earthquakes. And again the effects caught us off guard, thetragic past experiences and the multiple studies that have been done stillunheeded.

Almost five centuries ago the Spanish chronicler Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedopassed through these afflicted lands and wrote about the tremors and theireffects, recording the seriousness of this ongoing phenomenon and makingrecommendations for suitable territorial planning. He warned that "the foundersof new towns should keep away from such dangerous neighborhoods and placeswhere earthquakes and tempests have been seen, because sooner or later similardamage will happen and [...] whenever it does it will cause destruction anddesolation to men and provinces." But with earthquakes again causing furiousdevastation in Nicaragua, it is obvious that we have made little progress over thepast five centuries. The conclusion drawn by the refugees is obvious and theyhave undoubtedly repeated it many times before: "Living here is a scourge!"

A first assessment of the damages


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The losses caused by the earthquakes and the intense aftershocks that continueddays afterwards in the Meseta de los Pueblos have not yet been fully calculated.According to figures gathered as of July 13 by the Red Cross, MASINFA, WorldVision, Citizens Initiative, UNAG, the Civil Defense Force and the CommunalMovement and processed by the Masaya Civil Coordinator, some 16,402 peopleand 3,084 houses were affected in the Masaya municipality, representing 14% ofthe total population and housing. Of the houses affected, 1,470 were destroyed

and 1,614 damaged.In the city of Masaya alone, 189 houses were destroyed and 894 severely

damaged, representing 7% of all urban housing. The situation was worse inMasaya's rural areas, where almost 40% of the houses suffered some damage. Inthe small La Ermita area of Valle de Laguna, only 53 houses out of 508 wereundamaged.

Summarizing other figures provided by the emergency committees inGranada, Diriomito, Diriomo and Diri, 202 houses were destroyed, 487 semi-destroyed and 1,007 more received some kind of damage. Just in the latter threeancient indigenous towns, 9,636 people were affected, with a further 2,800affected in Catarina, an indigenous town as famous for its gardeners andnurseries as San Juan del Oriente is for its cottage pottery.

Cracks and cave-insin our cultural heritage

The earthquakes also had a huge impact on Nicaragua's cultural heritage.Although magnificent colonial examples of popular religious imagerysuch as theBad Thief, the Lord of the Miracles and Jesus of Nazareth from Masaya's Church ofthe Calvarywere saved, many valuable old churches were left in a veryprecarious state by the violent shock waves.

The Parish Church of Our Lady of the Assumptionin Masaya was designed byDiego Jos de Porres y Esquivel, a Guatemalan mulatto also responsible forLen's famous Cathedral. It is a formidable construction dating back to the 18thcentury and was undergoing restoration for accumulated damages when thetremors caused cracks in the tower and toppled the Virgin positioned in an alcovein the church's facade. Although construction started in 1760, making itMasaya's oldest church, it resisted the onslaught thanks to the quality ofmaterials used and its adaptation to seismic activity, both of which werecharacteristics of de Porres' famous Guatemala school of architecture.

In contrast, the barrel vault and tower of the Church of St. Jerome sustainedserious damage, even though it is a 20th-century building completed in thefifties. Plans are to fence off the church as a precautionary measure. Someengineers believe that it could be restored, but at a cost of over US$500,000.Others recommend that it be demolished, a measure that would only be taken as

a last resort. Although St. Jerome is not Masaya's patron saint, he is the object ofthe city's most joyful celebrations, which last for a whole month. The churchbearing his name was built on the site of an old indigenous temple, locateddirectly in front of the volcano, which probably accounts for the popularity ofSaint Jerome, or Tata Chombo as he is popularly known.

The first quake seriously damaged the left side wall and facade of the Churchof the Calvary, a 19th-century stone building with Arabic-style roof tiles, also inMasaya. The second quake finished the job. Apparently little can be done andexperts recommend its demolition.


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The same is true of the San Juan de Oriente's church, which has a charmingpopular baroque faade. Dating back to the 18th century, is one of the oldestchurches in the Meseta de los Pueblos. It sustained serious damages halfway upthe walls and its buttresses came away from the main structure. Demolition wasrecommended, as restoring the damage would be too costly.

Diri's Church of the Candlemas Virgin, which was built in the 19th centuryand has magnificent arches, was severely damaged, but can be restored. The

church in Diriomo is also repairable, although its arches and cornices were badlyaffected. Damage was also sustained in the Holy Chapel of Granada's 20th-century Cathedral, built on the site of the parish church destroyed by WilliamWalker's filibusters. The Cathedral contains the remains of many bishops ofNicaragua. Finally, the Mara Auxiliadora Chapel of the Salesian Church of St.Sebastian, was also left in bad shape but can be repaired.

The overall damage has been severe and reparations will take millions ofdollars. National Institute of Culture director Clemente Guido and the membersof the institute's National Heritage Commission met with parishioners from theaffected churches to evaluate the damages, calculate the cost of repairs, planviable operations and take certain precautionary measures. Among the latter arethe suspension of religious services and the prohibition of fireworks near the

churches as loud noises and crowds could cause cave-ins.

The seven plagues: stress, vigils,drought, economic ruin

The sociological impact of the earthquakes is also evident. By the end of July,local inhabitants were still sleeping in their back yards, in the streets in front oftheir houses or even beside highways, fearful of new tremors following thereactivation of the system of fault lines. Stress and nighttime vigils were takingtheir toll on productivity and family relations, adding to the problems alreadycaused by a prolonged drought in the Masaya area. According to Julio Narvez,Masaya's departmental president of the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers(UNAG), 6,290 of the 10,710 acres of basic grains planted have been lost due tothe unusually dry start to the rainy season. Meanwhile the local arts and craftsindustries in various small towns also suffered serious setbacks because thefallen masonry smashed finished products, traditional kilns, lathes, sewingmachines and many other tools and means of production. San Juan de Orientefondly known as San Juan of the Plateswas particularly badly hit, affecting anestimated 180 potters.

The disaster also had a negative influence on trading, which is particularlyserious because Masaya's small fruit and vegetable merchants often supply areasas far away as Ro Blanco, Matigus and Wiwil in northern Nicaragua. As onelagoon-side inhabitant put it: "The lagoon people sell basket loads of vegetables

and handmade brooms. They were forced to dip into their savings during thecrisis and now have no working capital left. The only thing they can do is scrimpas much as possible, since they need money to make a living. They need credit."

So near to Managuaand so far from help

The famous Emergency Committee created by the Disaster Prevention andMitigation System is more a result of support by the United Nations DevelopmentProgram than of national initiatives. Despite consuming large amounts of


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resources on seminars and interdisciplinary studies, it was conspicuous by itsabsence during the recent crisis in Masaya. Having clambered up the lagoon'ssteep sides in desperate flight from the earthquakes and probable landslides andin search of some haven where they could wait out the emergency, inhabitantsfrom the Apoyo Lagoon area were offended by the meager aid offered by thegovernment. Just a few days after the tragedy hit, they began to leave theemergency shelters and return to their ruined homes. Of the 1,200 people who

initially took refuge in the "Laura Vicua" school, only 120 children and 99 adultsremained a week later, according to Lions Club vice-governor Leonardo TorresCspedes. He stated that the support they were able to provide to those affectedby the disaster was limited by the government's playing down of the situation'sseriousness, just as it did almost two years ago in the immediate aftermath of theHurricane Mitch tragedy.

Just a week after the earthquakes, the central government declared that theMasaya municipal government had total responsibility for the affected population.Under normal circumstances Masaya's government collects on average 1,200,000crdobas [a bit over US$94,000] a month, according to its financial director. ButMarlon Snchez, in charge of tax collection, estimated that the problemsgenerated by July's earthquakes would lower the tax income to the equivalent of

about US$23,600.The situation is much more serious in the Meseta, where the population is

smaller, the municipal administrations have fewer obligations and theinhabitants' economies are even more squalid. Normally, Catarina's municipalgovernment has an average monthly income of only 6,500 crdobas [some$500], which means that it cannot respond even to the most elemental needsgenerated by an emergency. The mayors of neighboring towns are in the sameboat, and thus asked the central government to advance them the transfers itsends to the municipal governments every three and four months.

Against the logic of people's immediate needs, but very much in keeping withhow a considerable part of the funds made available in the wake of HurricaneMitch was allocated, the government identified the main requirement in responseto this emergency as road construction; improving existing routes and opening upnew access roads to increase tourism in the area. In other words, the aim was torestore access to the luxurious residences that have sprung up along the banks ofthe lagoon. The status enjoyed by Apoyo Lagoon and its neighboring areas as aprotected area has not been respected by ministers, former ministers and otherhigh-ranking officials from the last three administrations. They continue to buildholiday homes and roads in the area, increasing the vulnerability of the lagoonbasin's slopes by digging up the tree roots that help bind these fragile soils.

The president speaks:

Nothing happened hereBut while many roads are planned, the housing supply is nowhere near coveringthe demand. The Nicaraguan Industry and Commerce Bank (BANIC) promised aproject to provide houses measuring 36 square meters. "They're saying now thatthey'll charge only what we can afford to pay every month, but later they'll turnthe screws" was the suspicious response of one potential project beneficiary.Many semi-destroyed houses have been declared fit to live in, so in one sector ofthe Lagoon Valley where 453 houses were affected, they are only talking ofbuilding 80 new houses. Meanwhile, INATEC's promise of another 23 houses is


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helping to increase the supply, but also adding to the inhabitants' confusion overwhat selection criteria will be applied.

The affected population feels generally helpless and does not know where toturn. As one person from the La Ermita sector explained: "Nobody is helping us.We're left out in the sun and wind. They told us they weren't going to help us,that the aid was coming just for the people of the lagoon sector. The councilorfrom here has done nothing and the local leaders have been terrible. Not even

the political parties have shown their faces, although they'll soon turn up whenthey want our votes."

The members of the local emergency committees have borrowed time fromwork and family commitments to serve their communities as best they can underthe circumstances. In Diriomito, the inhabitants took the initiative and formedtheir own committee, dividing it into various subcommittees for coordination,census, health, supplies, communications, basic services, transport and support.

They were particularly helped by Ticuantepe's priest and by traders fromManagua's Israel Lewites Market. According to committee member Jos RamnM., the state has done a disappearing act. "We haven't received any aid from thecentral or local governments. We held two meetings with the Masaya municipalgovernment, on Monday July 10 and Thursday July 13. It promised us provisions,

but nothing has come so far. They haven't helped us as promised and we feellike we've been tricked." Another member of the committee added, "PresidentAlemn came here to the Diriomito mirador, overlooking the lagoon, got out andsaid, 'Nothing happened here.' Maybe he wanted to see dead bodies strewnaround. But it's one thing to drive along the road, and quite another to get out ofthe car and take the paths into the boonies. That's where you see the realcatastrophe. That's why his government isn't supporting us, and it doesn't evenlie to us, which is just as well, because false promises only build false hopes."During an emergency, sensitiveness and effectiveness are put to the test in thefirst few days after the disaster has struck. Recent events have only served toreconfirm the donor community's growing suspicions in this respect.

A CAPITAL LACK OF SOLIDARITYIn some places the inhabitants were supported by volunteer doctors with verylittle equipment and medicine. The reaction from teachers in the disaster zonesvaried; some stayed, giving up their unexpected vacation to help, while othersleft terrified. Although there was a lot of aid from private individuals who decidedto distribute their aid directly, without state or nongovernmental intermediaries,the inhabitants of the department of Masaya were bitterly disappointed by whatthey saw as a lack of solidarity from their Managua neighbors.

Masaya's population still recalls the earthquake of December 22, 1972 whenthey threw open their houses to the many homeless Managuans. But there has

been no such general expression of solidarity in the aftermath of the Masayaearthquake. The times they are a-changing, but is it for the better? Now,everything is in the increasingly invisible hands of the state, the insufficienthands of the NGOs and the iron hands of the market. Discontent has even spreadamong supporters of the ruling PLC. "They're just knocking down the semi-destroyed houses by hand, without proper demolition equipment," theycomplained. Not even the rich owners of the chalets located on the banks ofApoyo Lagoon have seen fit to help the neighbors who watch over their propertiesin their absence. The magnates, as they are known, are too wrapped up in


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campaigning to ensure that even the roads leading to their summer houses areadequately repaired.

THE NGO RESPONSEAND FEMALE VULNERABILITY

The NGOs are fundamentally critical of treating those affected as charity cases

who are given aid without having their decision-making power taken into account.In response, a group of local NGOs got together to form the Masaya CivilCoordinator to carry out actions favoring the three thousand affected familiesusing aid provided by international cooperation. The initiative groups together 28organizations, including UNAG, the local Women's Collective, MASINFA, CEPAD,World Vision, COPROSA, Communal Movement, Masaya Women's Center, RedCross, Nakawe Foundation, Ixchen, ADESO and the Christian Base Communities.

The rehabilitation work will consist of three phasesemergency, reconstructionand developmentand the affiliated organizations will coordinate joint activitiesaccording to each one's specialty, be it disaster prevention, housing, mentalhealth, food security or job creation. All activities will have three crosscuttingthemes: the environment, community ethics and gender.

Why is a gender focus so important? Those of a simple disposition,particularly if they are men, insist that it is just a fad, but that is not the case.Particularly during a disaster, women are more vulnerable than men. Worse still,the men in their own families are the ones who make them more vulnerable.Women social workers belonging to a Masayan NGO observed that the women inthe emergency shelters "were busy with domestic chores while their husbandswere getting drunk." Similar attitudes were observed during Mitch. Because"boys don't cry," when men are driven to it by their powerlessness in the face ofa disaster, they tend to "balance up" their emotional imbalance, which they donot know how to handle, by abusing their power. Studies demonstrate that bothviolence against women and children and sexual violence rise sharply duringemergencies caused by natural disasters.

In response to the Coordinator's pluralist initiative, which involvesorganizations of all political stripes but is distanced from the governing party, thePLC decided to set up its own NGO as a political counterbalance. The CitizensAlliance, which is designed to seal the much-predicted Liberal victory in the cityof flowers, as Masaya is known, is represented by the PLC mayor of Masaya,Carlos Heck Nuez, grandson of Cornelio Heck, the infamous lieutenant ofdictator Anatasio Somoza Garca.

A FRAGILE INSTITUTIONALITYBUILT ON SHAKY GROUNDIn La Ermita, a group of Red Cross volunteers were teaching games toearthquake-affected children next to the chapel under a palm-leaf shelter. Thechildren turn up tumultuously, drawn by the promise of candies. "It'spsychosocial therapy" explained one of the youngsters, already familiar with theterminology.

After the wave of tremors, the zone was hit by a wave of censuses. The CivilDefense Force, the state housing bank (BAVINIC), it's technical institute (INATEC?)and various NGOs measured the houses, building up expectations and the decibellevel of the confusion. "They're drawn by the smell of death," said one cynicalinhabitant. Technicians turned up, scratching their heads as they wondered if


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trucks could navigate the narrow paths to deposit the building materials. Sincethere is no way they could, it may be the real reason for the delays in the repairand construction of houses.

Surveys and tape measures come and go. Officials from the NicaraguanInstitute of Territorial Studies (INETER) point out where nothing should be builtfrom now on, but do not specify where people should build, when the relocationprocess will startif there is oneand at whose expense or which institution will

be responsible. Perhaps this is why there is so much scratching of heads.Meanwhile, some officials talk not of relocations, but of avoiding populationgrowth in the zones most crisscrossed by seismic fault.

The local emergency committees have really made an effort to obtain aid.They have knocked and kicked on and even forced open all kinds of doors. Butalthough they are trying to establish themselves, local institutionality is built onshaky ground. The aid is filtering through so many cracks that much of it doesn'teven get past the first sections of the channel supposedly designed to carry it tothe affected population. At times the channel is narrow and only has the capacityfor very limited amounts, and when no aid is flowing, the system tends to clog upand has to be rebuilt altogether.

The obstacles of religious polarizationReligious polarization represents the most patent obstacle in La Ermita. Mostpeople recognize that the evangelicals have really got their act together. CivilDefense formed an emergency committee in this sector with the help of theevangelical church, but the fact that each visit from an evangelical delegationladen with donations has involved a loud and joyful religious service has arousedthe fierce jealously of a nucleus of Catholics.

As the tremors destroyed the evangelical church, the celebrations were held inthe small square next to the Catholic Church, which the Catholic congregationinterpreted as an outright act of provocation. In this climate of suspicion, thenon-sectarian distribution of donations has been viewed as Machiavellianproselytism rather than ecumenical solidarity.

Pentecostal Church of God pastor Juan Carlos Dvila tried to clear up themisunderstanding: "It's true that one of our celebrations coincided with thecelebration of Communion. I explained to them that it wasn't a case ofsectarianism; I apologized and asked permission to hold the service after theCatholic Mass. What happened was that the square filled with people convertingto the Lord and accepting Christ. It was all very joyous because the brothers thatwere visiting us brought aid and words of hope. There were also Catholicspresent who sought God during a moment of Biblical reflection.

Catholic parishioner Carlos Mndez agreed with that version: "They formed aCatholic committee that isn't doing anything and didn't want to merge with the

committee formed by Civil Defense, which has a majority of evangelicals on it.The Catholics claimed that the evangelicals were favoring their own faithful inretaliation for what Posoltega's parish priest did during Hurricane Mitch. But thatwas at the beginning. I'm a Catholic and I've received aid, because when the suncomes out it warms us all, Moors and Christians, good and bad, intelligent andignorant, workers and loafers. Like the sun, this aid is a blessing from God. Idon't think the Moors will abandon their faith and become Christians just becausethey received aid."


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Too many chiefs andnot enough committeesAnother common factor bogging down the emergency operations in the affectedcommunities was the lack of emergency committees. Emergency committees getinvented and reinvented with each new disaster so despite the best of intentionsmany make elementary mistakes. The structures created many years ago by theFSLN have been growing weaker. Violeta Chamorro's government recycled the

Sandinista Defense Committees into District Committees then the PLC broomcame along swept the local structures out of many districts altogether. Theexistence of a National Emergency Committee amounts to very little if itsinfluence dissipates the closer it gets to earth and municipal governments in ruralareas unaffected by Hurricane Mitch in October 1998 have done nothing to createemergency committees.

But where there are funds, local leaders abound. It's not surprising, as themajority of families have been living in the zone for over 40 years and knoweverything and everyone. Each NGO, party and state entity has its own hotbed ofleaders. The problem is that in an emergency each institution, faced with amultitude of leaders, gathers together "its" own, channeling the aid through themand trying to position them at the head of the emergency committee and have

them adopt the structures that the officials from the government in office at thetime have in mind. Given this division of efforts, one cannot help wonder if thepeople, the real people of the municipality, have any leaders other than thosewho endorse an organization imposed from outside and legitimize its ephemeraloutside financing.

The result of having such a wide range of leaders bumping into each other isthe unorganized, random distribution of aid. Each NGO does what occurs to it,sidestepping weak local structures. The same is true of the different churches.

That's the way things work. In one town, a red microbus bearing a sign saying"The Good Shepherd" parks next to the church. The door opens and a priest getsout. He's easily recognizable in his long-sleeved, black, roman-collared shirt,walking and with a stiff gait designed to project solemnity. After contemplatingthe sunken sides of the church, he initiates the chaotic distribution of aid towhoever happens to be near. Sneakers, candies and items of clothing startflowing from doors and windows of the bus. After a few minutes when themultitude is threatening to swamp the "donors," the microbus suddenly pullsaway, its passengers having assuaged their conscience through this act of"solidarity."

Some institutions adopt another attitude. World Neighbors concentrated onforming a committee in Diriomito to help channel their own and othercontributions. And the Masaya Civil Coordinator is trying to coordinate jointactions. So more strategic steps are beginning to be taken and it is to be hopedthat they leave a lasting mark.

Attend unexpected victimsor solve chronic victimization?

The aid has also run up against a recurrent dilemma: whether to provide animmediate solution or try to transform the age-old and stubborn problem ofpoverty. Should it attend to sudden damages or chronic damage, to long-termneeds or those recently caused by the catastrophe? Faced with this underlyingdilemma, the institutions engage in debates that tend to reveal their lack of adefined profile more than a will to help the poor. Disaster prevention is the big


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loser in these turbulent waters, because the issue of development is againimposed and blocks out any other requirement. The fallacy, which is becoming acallous one in this area, consists of assuming that any action that reducesvulnerability is linked to the fight against poverty and that fighting againstpoverty is enough to save us from natural disasters. This is not the case.Prevention is a specific issue that is not linked only to poverty, although it is truethat not providing a specific place for prevention naturally reflects a serious

poverty of ideas.

God knows what he is doingThe problem is also cultural. Some perceptions of reality are paralyzing and donot encourage preventive measures. Why prevent anything? In the world ofpoverty and the impoverished, fatalism can dominate will. Josefa Dvila isconvinced that "God never makes mistakes. If the earthquake had come at night,we would all be lined up at the cemetery. Or better still, they would havecremated us all." The future is just as certain: "And what will we do now? Startagain. It's enough to be alive. God knows what he's doing." At least herpredestination theory is not a paralyzing one, because she still has the energy to

"start again," although this eternal Sisyphian task takes its toll in sweat andtears.

But many also claim there is no point doing anything because "You can'tescape death when it comes for you. Nobody dies before their time." For thosethat think this way, preventive measures are irrelevant and the search for saferplaces amounts to useless agitation. Some modern "development theoreticians"idealize the endogenous, local cosmological vision, forgetting that such visionsare socially constructed and not purely endogenous. In fact, they are partlyinduced by poorly educated priests, opportunist bosses, populist leaders and aculturally rooted and extremely paralyzing machismo.

No coincidence that it's the year 2000The intervals between natural disasters have been reduced over the last decadethroughout the world, and Nicaragua is no exception to the rule. This is anindisputable fact, although specialists are divided over its statistical significanceand possible attribution to a circumstantial situation in which worldwideprocesses such as global warning combine with national effects. Given theincreasing frequency of disasters and catastrophes, the population often comesup with millenarian-type conclusions, an apocalyptic fatalism that does little tohelp the coordination of preventive programs centered on the causes ofvulnerability.

The affected population's explanations of the Masaya disaster were plaguedwith such fatalist and predestined elements. "It was already written because theend of the world is nigh. It's no coincidence that we're in the year 2000," as oneinhabitant put it, "and God is good because he didnt just kill us all."

Many people are examining even the most insignificant pre-earthquakehappenings, like soothsayers deciphering the guts of a sacrificed animal, huntingfor unheeded warning signs of the coming catastrophe. A number of lagoon-sideinhabitants recall the presence of foreigners who warned local fishermen of theimminent danger: "They already knew that an earthquake was coming!" Otherstell how locals are attributing the events to local myths and legends, such as theforest at the bottom of the lagoon: "Maybe some of the leafy trees below the


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water fell down, or maybe some of the rocks on the mountain that they say isdown there came crashing down."

A VALUABLE STUDYSuch fatalism and superstition blended with science when INETER, thegovernment's institute of territorial studies, later turned up "reading" the earth.

In fact, some "foreigners" had indeed been examining the earth and makingobviously ominous forecasts, but that was two years, not a couple of days, beforethe earthquake. Their efforts resulted in a document titled "Geological Study andRecognition of the Geological Threat. Masaya and Granada Area " (1998), whichgathers the results of joint research by INETER and the Czech Geological Institutefrom Prague. The study includes a complex evaluation of the volcanic zone'sgeological structures in the Depression of Nicaragua and an evaluation of thegeological and natural dangers around large cities such as Managua, Masaya,Granada and Nandaime.

The work involved studies of the area's geology, vulcanology and soil and theextension, density and structure of its rocks. Czech cooperation financed all ofthe research with the aim of improving geological knowledge of the area and

providing information for territorial planning and construction work. The studywas supposed to play an important part in preventing the destructiveconsequences of natural phenomena through the establishment anddissemination of geological criteria that could be applied to urban development.It was also designed to mitigate the effects of disasters by determiningappropriate evacuation routes.

UNSTABLE LANDThe area covered by the study turned out to be the same area affected by therecent seismic activity: the zone between Nicaragua's two big lakes, Cocibolca (orNicaragua) and Xolotln (or Managua). Many of the towns there are located on

top of vast deposits of pumice stone that originated from ancient eruptions of theApoyo volcano. This volcano was destroyed some 23,000 years ago in a massiveeruption that spewed up pumice stone around the area where a lagoon wouldform thousands of years later. It is hard to believe that the blue mirror of ApoyoLagoon is a memento of such a colossal "natural disaster."

This area is sitting on what geologists term "calderas": ancient volcaniccenters that are currently undergoing intense processes of subsidence due to thedownward movement of vast blocks hidden under relatively young volcanicdeposits. The frequent seismic activity in this area is caused by instability aroundthe edges of the calderas. The area's high population density increases the riskof disaster and the study does not rule out the possible reactivation of Apoyo'svolcanic structure. Towns affected this time, such as Diri, Diriomo and San Juande Oriente, are located at the meeting point of the Carazo and Apoyo calderas,where the subsidence of the tectonic plates could become very intense,representing a potentially fatal threat.

The study states that the city of Masaya is at greatest risk because it islocated at the meeting point of three calderas. The city and its surrounding arealie on a surface formed by a powerful pyroclastic flow that covers a highlyunstable and still developing system of tectonic blocks. In addition, the soils inthe Masaya area are not very firm, which is why the tremors shattered the floorsof houses in Lagoon Valley. One lagoon-side inhabitant recalls that INETER


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personnel told him years ago that " we are over a fault line. As I see it, theres acrack in the earth. With this earthquake, the earth opened up easily, because allof this earth was moved, it's like landfill, really loose earth."

The fact that the soils foundation] is volcanic and relatively young, have afragile contexture and are exposed to both external and subterranean erosionmeans that it is not easy to live on these land expanses. The thin epidermis doeslittle to hide the internal decomposition, fractures and multiple contusions.

One of the world's most seismic countriesA large part of Nicaraguan territory is marked by the internal and unhealedopenings know as fault lines. The Mesoamerican Trough runs parallel to thecountry's Pacific coastline, just 150 km out to sea. From time immemorial thatgreat geological accident marking the intersection between the Cocos andCaribbean tectonic plates has implied forces in tension, friction, the fusion ofrocks and ruptures, which cause major earthquakes.

Up until half a century ago no exhaustive recording had been made of thestrength of these telluric movements, but modern apparatuses now enable us toknow the true force of this activity. Between 1975 and 1982, INETERs 16

stations and 20 accelerographs detected 11,000 seismic movements inNicaraguan territory. In the next three years it registered 4,000 tremors, most ofthem imperceptible to the population.

Between 1528 and 1998 Nicaraguan experienced no less than 136 violenttremors, which produced significant human and material damage. These largemovements can be classified as major tremorsthose associated with large platemovements, which recur every 30 to 50 yearsand minor tremorslinked tofaults in the volcanic chain and with a frequency of 10.8 years. These figuresplace Nicaragua among the countries with the highest seismic indices in theworld. However, the tremors that hit Nicaraguan cities most often are notextremely intense. None has registered more than 6.9 on the Richter scale. Themost devastating earthquake in our history, which occurred in December 1972 inManagua, registered only 5.9 and yet it destroyed the capital. It caused 11,000deaths and 20,000 people injured and left 250,000 homeless, while 75% of thecity's houses were destroyed or left uninhabitable in an affected area of 27 kmsquared. According to a study done for a Swedish NGO by Jaime Wheelock, JaimeIncer Barquero and Lorenzo Cardenal, "The catastrophic damage caused by thiskind of earthquake is attributed to the fact that the main population settlementslie on the Lakes Depression, where the lands are more fragile and more fractured.

The poor and inadequate construction systems are another reason.

No budget, no willAfter looking at the INETER map where the different types of faults arerepresented by distinct kinds of dotted lines, Diriomo Mayor Francisco Camposconcluded, "This region looks like a papaya after it's been scored for eating. I'mreally worried." On a recent visit, the Czech technicians identified the undeniablebut unrealizable solution: everyone should move to the Caribbean coast. Therecords show that between 1997 and 1998 only 1.8% of the countrys tremorsoccurred in the northern central and Caribbean zones. The northeast of theCaribbean plain is considered to be free from seismic activity due to its locationon a stable area of the Caribbean plate with fewer faults and deformities.


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The impossibility of ordering and carrying out such a massive migration makesit important to demand the rigorous implementation of construction norms andensure that the cities expand toward safer areas. It is essential to be aware, forexample, that the current erosion is taking place on accumulations ofunconsolidated volcanic deposits and is facilitated by the looseness andpermeability of those deposits. Runoff washes away fine volcanic particles,gradually forming caves that are isolated at first, but unite over time to form

large caverns. Tremors could cause these cavities to cave in, thus increasing thenegative effects. Meanwhile in the area most affected by the recent earthquakes,houses tended to crack up because of the instability of their foundations. Thearea between Apoyo Lagoon and Lake Cocibolca is very susceptible tosubterranean erosion as it lies on the drainage line of these water masses withthe result that the effects of the tremors will probably always be felt morestrongly there.

Unfortunately, many people will continue to ignore all the warnings. The factis that there is no budget and little will. State officials, who should have soundedthe warning bells some time ago, remain in a state of comfortable indolence. Forthem, Apoyo Lagoon is a place to spend their holidays rather than somewherewhere disaster prevention measures should be applied. That's why the Czech

mission's document has been put in cold storage for the last two years. Nobodyeven had the chance to look this particular gift horse in the mouth because it wasimmediately dispatched to some dusty shelf where it was quietly laid to rest. Ithas become a habit in the state institutions for studies and surveys financed byforeign cooperation to be immediately buried in this way. They are not even puton sale for the benefit of interested citizens. If information is power, then a newform of illiteracy is being imposed in Nicaragua.

Nine out of ten housesare badly built

The theory that poor construction increases the effects of a disaster is not hard toprove. Nicaragua has a construction code but it is not respected and infractionsare never sanctioned. According to the Nicaraguan Chamber of Construction, noless than 90% of the countrys houses are badly built and were not supervised bya professional builder. This is even more worrying when one considers that mostof the buildings in the Pacific region have been erected on fault lines.

Wood was the typical construction material in medieval Spain; even the rooftiles were made of wood. For a time not even fortresses were built entirely ofstone. During the 15th-century wars in Spain it became "fashionable" to razeentire towns by burning them down. When these wars came to an end, newmunicipal norms imposed that houses be built of materials less vulnerable to fire.

The conquest and colonization exported this particular model to Nicaragua and

the rest of Latin America, and the need to display one's status ensured that themajority of the population used it. The greater durability of stone, brick andtaquezal constructions only served to reinforce the historical trend.

Ephemeral housesoftaquezal and quarry stoneMany houses in Masaya and throughout the Meseta de los Pueblosthe zoneaffected by this year's earthquakesare made of taquezal and bricks. Taquezalconsists of a wooden framework filled in with rough-cut stones piled up into a


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kind of unordered rubblework. The size of the stones is not a deciding factor, noinstruments are employed to ensure a flush surface and everything is boundtogether by a mud-based mortar, which provides a relatively short-lived cohesion.A large percentage of the houses that collapsed during the Masaya quakes wereold taquezal buildings.

In the rural area, the very popular cuartern bricka mass of baked clay inthe form of a parallelepipedhas been gradually replaced by quarry stone. While

the industrial revolution in Europe made possible the diffusion of bricks, as claywas much more abundant than building stone, the abundance of such stone inthe villages on the banks of Apoyo Lagoon has turned this material into a key andalmost exclusive construction material. As one Lagoon Valley dweller proudly putit, "Quarry stone construction was invented here."

The zone's inhabitants are openly proud of the areas most abundant mineralresource, which was spewed up by volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago. Ablock of 10"x15" quarry stone costs ten crdobas (about US$0.80) and ismanually hewn from the quarries with great metal wedges. There are two kinds:blue stone, which is very compact and impermeable, and pumice stone, whichsome people call talpuja. The latter can be directly extracted as stone from themany volcanic deposits but it is more often manufactured into cinder block by

combining coarse pumice sand with cement. One well-established way to cutexpenses is to reduce the amount of cement and increase the amount of sand, areadily available ingredient that only involves transport costs. The costeffectiveness of this practice was all too evident in the recent collapse of localbuildings. People tend to prefer pumice stone over the blue stone due topumice's porosity. The assumption is that this makes it more receptive to thecement mortar and thus assures firmer and more durable joints, but in practicepumice's fragile texture means it crumbles more easily, particularly if the blocksmade with it skimped on cement.

Quality depends on thebuilder and the pocketbookConstruction in poor communities can create deadly contradictions betweenhunger and the desire to eat, between the need for housing and the need forwork. As Francisco Campos, Diriomo's mayor, noted, people "make houses out ofblocks with no columns in the corners, just overlapping the stones instead. Theyuse iron reinforcement rods inadequately; for example, as iron is gettingincreasingly expensive, they sometimes use only two loose thin rods in the girderinstead of four strong ones tied into a column." Or for the foundation they justlay a narrow quarry stone perimeter and put the columns right on top of itwithout putting a reinforced footed foundation beam down first."

Typical houses in this area have a few small windows, two doors, clay roof

tileswhich are being increasingly substituted by corrugated sheet metalandwalls made of taquezal, cement blocks, cuartern bricks, adobe, blue quarrystone or pumice stone. The adobe houses are old with walls that are not plumband are often misshapen because their perimeters were poorly laid out and didnot align. If cinder blocks are used, they are often not laid straight, making thewall surfaces uneven and the limited amount of cement used in the mixturemakes the blocks as crumbly as giant pieces of lump sugar. Meanwhile, the redclay roof tiles tend to get slimy with tropical moss and are liable to slip away fromtheir rickety supports.


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"There is no supervision from the municipal council," stressed Jos Dvila fromPlan de Laguna. "The construction process depends on the builder's knowledgeand they often do a shoddy job. The economic difficulties force them to build inthe cheapest possible way." Many builders are also self-taught, starting fromchildhood, and have picked up tricks of the trade over the years, sometimes forbetter and sometimes for worse.

The Diriomo municipal government has come up with a proposal that could be

a first step toward solving this chronic problem. Mayor Campos, who has theexperience of three consecutive terms in office and is sought out by everyoneneeding answers to even the most intimate tribulations, has been working on theproposal with a disaster prevention, mitigation and attention committee createdtwo weeks before the tremors hit. On the committee are representatives fromthe municipal government, the emergency operations center and the health,supplies, infrastructure and transport, environmental and natural resources andconsumer defense commissions. Mayor Campos explained the initiative this way:"We don't want the citizens to restore their houses using the same inadequatetechniques. We have suggested to INETER that the Ministry of Transportationand Infrastructure organize training seminars for masons, design an educationalprimer on construction and draw up a building code. Unfortunately, municipal

governments have no team to supervise constructions right now. The buildingpermit is granted based just on verifying the boundary line, not a building plan,and there's no construction supervision whatever. The problem is that peoplebuild badly because they don't have the money to do otherwise. That's how abadly-planned economy works."

The problem is economicAs is often the case as well in many other issues and on many other occasions,the problem, as Mayor Campos correctly identified it, is indeed an economic one.

The best recommendations, the most thoroughgoing studies and the plansbursting with good intentions all run straight up against this wall. According toecologist Lorenzo Cardenal, "The location of human settlements is decided byeconomic, social and political factors. A country's human settlement system hasa territorial logic determined by the history of the population's occupation of theterritory and by the resources the physical and natural environment provide.

Thus the distribution of the main and secondary cities and of towns and villagesexpresses the evolution of the economic, social and political forces that haveshaped our nations history." The natural wealth of the Meseta de los Pueblos, itswater sources and its strategic position in relation to the country's mostimportant urban centers have been attractive enough to stimulate populationgrowth there, despite the risks involved.

Managua is in an even more compromising position, yet there is no thought of

moving this capital city, despite the recurrent catastrophes. The area it is builton is a veritable spider web of active tectonic fault lines whose devastatingeffects are potentially multiplied by the poor population's terrible constructionsystems and the accelerated rate of urban growth. To top it all, its location in avalley and its deficient drainage systems make it extremely susceptible toflooding.

Adaptability is the key to prevention


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Recent developments in the field of ecology suggest that local environmentsshould not in fact be viewed as stable and balanced ecosystems, but aslandscapes that emerge as the result of dynamic and variable ecologicalprocesses, undergo constant changes and are subject to disturbing events ininteraction with human intervention. Rather than just seeing environmentalproblems as an imbalance between communities and their resources, with theimplicit supposition that a pre-existing and natural balance could and should be

reestablished, any measures proposed should go beyond the notion of technicallyideal territorial planning. They have to start considering that since the kind ofrisks a settlement is vulnerable to depends on its location, the buildingtechnology employed will play a large role in determining the degree of thatvulnerability. As Lorenzo Cardenal explained, "the key concept for interpretingthe social management of physical vulnerability is what we call 'adaptability,'which in other words means a community's ability to absorb the changes that adisaster causes in its particular milieu."

While the above may seem absurdly self-evident, little in fact has been donein Nicaragua to increase the adaptability of populations living in risk conditions.No attention is paid to these risks in urban planning, road and drainageinfrastructure or construction methods. Cities are being built randomly and

people can erect a building any way they want without paying any attention topossible disasters. The construction norms that do exist are not even known letalone applied, and the government exhibits no sense of need to disseminatethem. Even if the government did make an effort to get people to know aboutand appreciate the importance of building norms and appropriate techniques,money talks and lack of money silences. The low-income levels of the majority ofthe population immediately hobble any good initiative.

When it comes to earthquakes, the disaster prevention problem is directlyrelated to the possibility of having a safe and decent house, and that is mainlydefined by the family's income. The procedures for obtaining such a house ormaking improvements on an existing one are not only related to the monetaryeconomy. In rural areas and marginalized urban areas, social relations andconnections, such as being related to a builder, can be just as important. It isnecessary to learn and understand the rationale that guides those with extremelylimited resources when they set about to build or make improvements on ahouse. This rationale attempts to compensate for the institutional and financialweaknesses of both the country and the interested party. Understanding it thusis an essential step in realizing that disaster prevention in the area of housinginvolves loans for property, research aimed at developing new materials and thetraining of good building workers, among other factors.

The problem is also political

The mayors of the affected zones are clear that the low-income sectors shouldreceive state assistance to guarantee that the building materials and constructionmethods they employ are appropriate for the risks to which they are exposed.Meanwhile, INETERs technicians are proposing to implement a territorial planthat would distribute the population to areas less affected by faults. Up to now,cities have been growing rapidly and in an unordered sprawl.

The problem is also a political one. It is obvious that the country's politicalreality, including the PLC-FSLN pact, have created a context in which good land isbeing concentrated back in few hands. This limits the number of available landon which most people can build to areas by the big estates and the outskirts so


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far untouched by the land-guzzling mentality that spurs on powerful landlords,both old and new. This mentality is currently detected in abundance amongLiberals, Conservatives, Sandinistas, partners of powerful landlords who arrivewith a similarly voracious appetite from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico... Thecurrent recomposition of economic groups in Nicaragua is also playing its part inthis. In short, the rumbling bowels of Masaya have revealed many, many lessonsto those willing to learn...

Jos Luis Rocha is a researcher for Nitlapn-UCA and a member of envo'seditorial council.

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