Emergencies
A young boy helps transport sand bags. A young boy helps transport sand bags during preparations against heavy rains and mudslides in a slum considered to be at high risk of mudslides in Guatemala City October 4, 2005. Torrential rains and mudslides killed at least 35 people in Central America as collapsing hillsides buried homes and rivers burst their banks. REUTERS/Daniel LeClair (Copyright: REUTERS/Daniel LeClair, ) 

 Reuters/Daniel LeClair, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Central America

Save the Children continues to assist thousands of children and families forced from their homes in El Salvador and Guatemala as a result of torrential rains, floods and landslides from Hurricane Stan, which officials fear may have killed as many as 2,000 people in Central America

With rains now subsiding, the governments in El Salvador and Guatemala – the two countries hardest hit by the hurricane—are still struggling to assist many rural villages in mountainous areas where mudslides have taken a heavy toll, wiping out homes, schools and churches and leaving many families homeless.

Rains also have impacted families in Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua and destroyed thousands of acres of agriculture, including many coffee fields. 
Young boy participates in Save the Children psycho-social program. Program helps children express emotions following the volcano eruption in El Salvador.

Save the Children is working closely with authorities in El Salvador and Guatemala to assist displaced families, with agency staff members providing basic necessities such as food, water, sanitary towels, diapers and children's clothes at shelters. Save the Children aid workers also are working to help children adjust to the disaster through supervised play activities.

In addition, Save the Children is assisting families in El Salvador who live near Santa Ana, the country's largest volcano, which erupted for the first time in one hundred years early Saturday morning October 1.

“The volcanic eruption has created great fear of potential further eruptions, and the government recently directed a wide-scale relocation of villagers," said Catherine Kennedy, field office director for Save the Children in El Salvador. "Families in all nearby communities have been asked to move to the shelters as a precaution, including two communities in which we work.”

Save the Children has worked in Guatemala and El Salvador on behalf of children and their families for more than two decades, with a special focus on improving children's health and education.

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