After two hurricanes Cuba’s eastern coast experiences a 6.8 earthquake

USGS Cube earthquake

Important Takeaways:

  • 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of eastern Cuba on Sunday, causing material damage in several regions as the island continues to recover from widespread blackouts and the impact of two hurricanes over the past few weeks.
  • The earthquake was reported about 39 km (24 miles) south of Bartolomé Masó before noon local time, about an hour after a 5.9 magnitude quake rocked the area, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
  • “There have been landslides, damage to homes and power lines,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said, adding that authorities are evaluating the situation to start recovery efforts.
  • Residents in eastern Cuba told Reuters that the tremor was as powerful as any they’ve felt before.
  • The quake was also felt in the eastern provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Holguin and Guantánamo, where the deadly Hurricane Oscar struck last month.
  • Another storm, Rafael, slammed into western Cuba on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane, knocking out power across the island, in the latest major blackout in recent weeks.
  • The quake was apparently not felt in the capital Havana, but shockwaves did reach southern Florida, with footage on social media showing swaying ceiling lights from a tower in Miami.

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David Reagan on “The Message of Hurricanes and the Unheeded Calls For National Repentance”

Hurricane satellite photo of earth

Important Takeaways:

  • Luke 21:11 KJV – “And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.“
  • [David Reagan] The Signs of the Times
  • The Bible provides us with many signs we are to watch for that will signal the soon return of Jesus. As I have studied them, I have found it useful to put them into categories. They naturally seem to fall into six groups:
    • 1) The Signs of Nature
    • 2) The Signs of Society
    • 3) Spiritual Signs
    • 4) The Signs of World Politics
    • 5) The Signs of Technology
    • 6) The Signs of Israel
  • A Category Held in Contempt
  • The category of signs that receives the least respect is the signs of nature. There are two reasons for this, one that is conceptual and another that is philosophical.
  • The conceptual problem resides in the fact that there have always been signs of nature. So, when confronted with the prophesied signs of nature, many people shrug their shoulders and ask, “What else is new? There have always been tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes.”
  • What they overlook is that Jesus said these signs would be like “birth pangs” (Matthew 24:8), which means they will increase in frequency and intensity the closer we get to the Lord’s return. And that is exactly what appears to be happening today.
  • God and Signs of Nature
  • Sometimes, God uses signs of nature to underline the importance of major events. Thus, at the birth of Jesus, God placed a special light in the heavens, probably a manifestation of His Shekinah glory. When Jesus was crucified, the earth experienced three hours of darkness and a major earthquake. And the Bible says that when Jesus returns, the world will experience the greatest earthquake in its history. Every island will be moved, valleys will be lifted, mountains will be lowered, and the city of Jerusalem will be lifted up like a jewel, possibly becoming the highest place on earth (Revelation 16:18-21 and Isaiah 40:3-5).
  • More often, God uses signs of nature as remedial judgments to call nations to repentance. Both the Bible and history attest to the fact that God has a pattern of dealing with nations. To begin with, He is the one who establishes nations, and He is the one who takes them down (Daniel 2:20-21). When a nation rebels against God, He responds first by raising up prophetic voices to call the nation to repentance—
  • If a nation refuses to listen to the prophetic voices, God will then send remedial judgments. These can take many forms. Deuteronomy 28 mentions economic failure, rebellion of youth, an epidemic of divorce, confusion in government, foreign domination, and military defeat. The chapter also mentions natural disasters like drought, crop failure, and pestilence. Biblical history indicates that rulers can be remedial judgments. In other words, God often judges nations by giving them the kind of leaders they deserve.
  • Finally, if a nation digs in against God and sets its jaw against His calls to repentance, a point of no return will be reached — often referred to as “when the wound becomes incurable” (Nahum 3:19, Jeremiah 30:12, and Micah 1:9). At this point, the Lord will deliver the nation from judgment to destruction. That destruction may occur quickly, as with Babylon and the Soviet Union, or it may occur gradually over a period of time, as with the Roman Empire and the United States today.
  • Examples of Remedial Judgments
    • Take, for example, the plagues with which God afflicted Egypt in order to convince Pharaoh that he should release the children of Israel from captivity. The Lord sent plagues of frogs, gnats, flies, and locusts. In addition, He contaminated the nation’s water, afflicted the livestock with pestilence, struck the people with sores and boils, engulfed the land in a thick darkness, and finally took the lives of the firstborn of both men and livestock.
    • When King Ahab led the Israelites into the worship of a pagan god, the Lord raised up the prophet Elijah to call the king and his people to repentance. When they ignored Elijah, the Lord then put a remedial judgment on the land in the form of a severe three and a half year drought (1 Kings 17 and 18).
    • The book of Joel tells about a locust invasion that afflicted Judah. This was one of the worst calamities that could befall an agricultural society. It appears that people began bemoaning their “bad luck.” That’s when God sent the prophet Joel to inform them that the disaster had nothing to do with luck. Joel boldly proclaimed that the locusts had been sent by God to call the people to repentance. He warned that if they did not repent, the Lord would send something even worse—an enemy army. The people ignored Joel and the prophets who followed him, and God ultimately sent the army, delivering them from judgment to destruction.
    • The Nature of God
      • God has continued throughout history to use signs of nature to call nations to repentance. Some people say, “Oh no, God doesn’t do that anymore because this is the ‘Age of Grace.’”
      • Well, the first problem with that statement is that it implies there was a previous time of no grace. The fact of the matter is that there is only one way of salvation that has ever existed: namely, grace through faith (Joel 2:32).
      • Furthermore, the Bible says God is “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). There is no such thing as the Old Testament God of wrath and the New Testament God of grace. God does not change (Malachi 3:6).
      • The Old Testament God of wrath is the one who showed grace toward the wicked city of Ninevah when its people repented in response to the message of Jonah. The New Testament God of grace is the one who warned the church at Thyatira that if it continued to tolerate a false prophetess, He would “cast her upon a bed of sickness and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation.” Further, He threatened to “kill her children with pestilence” (Revelation 2:22-23).
    • The Role of Satan
      • Some counter by trying to argue that natural calamities come from Satan and not God. But the Bible teaches that God is sovereign. Satan is not free to do anything he pleases. When he wanted to torment Job, he had to ask God’s permission, and when he was granted permission, God laid down rules about what he could and could not do (Job 1:6-12).
    • Crucial Questions
      • Are all natural calamities a product of Man’s sin? Yes, absolutely. The original creation was perfect. Natural calamities are a result of the curse that God placed on the creation in response to Man’s sin. When Jesus returns, the curse will be lifted, and natural calamities will cease.
      • Do all natural calamities represent remedial judgments of God? No, most are products of the natural processes of our weather systems.
      • How, then, can we determine when a natural calamity is a remedial judgment? One important factor is the timing of the event as it relates to the sins of the nation. Another factor is the magnitude of the event. Remedial judgments are designed to have great shock value in order to capture people’s attention and force them to think with an eternal perspective. The most important factor is God’s Spirit witnessing to the spirits of those to whom He has given the gift of prophetic discernment. They will be motivated to speak forth with a united voice.
    • The Example of the United States
      • We can see all these principles operating in the history of our own nation. We were founded as a Christian nation, committed to Christian values, and God greatly blessed us. But in the 1960s, we began to thumb our nose at God as a cultural revolution was launched. Our society quickly descended into a cesspool of sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, abortion on demand, legalized gambling, rampant blasphemy, and a flood of pornography. Our national slogan became, “If it feels good, do it!” We adopted a hedonistic lifestyle, calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).
      • God responded by raising up prophetic voices to call the nation to repentance. One of those was Dave Wilkerson, pastor of Times Square Church in New York City. I called him “God’s Jeremiah to America.” In the 70s he began writing a series of books in which he clearly outlined the sins of America and warned of judgments from God if we did not repent. Like Jeremiah, his popularity plummeted because people—even church people—did not want to hear his “doomsday message.”
      • When the prophetic voices were ignored, God began to place remedial judgments on our nation — things like our defeat in the Vietnam War, the AIDS epidemic, the plague of sexually transmitted diseases, the scourge of homosexuality, and natural disasters in the form of monster earthquakes and killer tornados and hurricanes.
      • The culmination of the remedial judgments seemed to come with the 9/11 terrorist assault in 2001 when two symbols of American pride were attacked: the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The towers stood as symbols of our wealth; the Pentagon symbolized our military power.
      • I believe this event was a wake-up call from God for our nation to repent. Instead, like a drowsy man who doesn’t want to wake up, we merely rolled over and hit the snooze button on the alarm clock.
    • A New Factor
      • I don’t think there is any doubt that our national sins have called down remedial judgments from God. But what I think we may have failed to realize is that since 1991, many of the judgments we have experienced have been directly related to our mistreatment of Israel.
      • The Bible says that God will bless those who bless Israel, and He will curse those who curse Israel (Genesis 12:3). The Bible also says that he who touches Israel touches “the apple of God’s eye” (Zechariah 2:8).
      • I believe that many of our blessings as a nation have been due to the fact that we have historically been a safe haven for the Jewish people. Also, we have been Israel’s best friend ever since the nation came back into being in 1948.
      • But the Bible says that in the end times, all the nations of the world will come together against Israel over the issue of Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:3). And in the early 90s, we began to turn against Israel in our determination to maintain access to Arab oil.
    • The Decisive Year
      • The turning point was in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Russian Jews began flooding into Israel at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a day for one year. The tiny nation of Israel was overwhelmed by the refugees. The Israeli government appealed to the World Bank for a $5 billion loan. The bank said it would grant the loan only if the U. S. guaranteed it. The Bush Administration agreed to underwrite the loan on one condition: the Israelis had to go to the bargaining table and start trading land for peace.
      • Yes, we were the ones who forced Israel into adopting the suicidal policy of appeasement, and we have been twisting their arm ever since, pressuring them to divide up the land which God gave them as an everlasting possession. Keep in mind that we can apply enormous pressure because our veto in the United Nations Security Council is the only thing standing between Israel and economic sanctions that could easily and quickly destroy the Israeli economy.
    • Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel
      • In February of 2004 a White House correspondent named William Koenig published a book entitled, “Eye to Eye.” It was subtitled, “Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel.” The thesis of the book was that many of the natural calamities, economic setbacks, and political crises experienced by the United States since 1991 had been directly related to actions we took to force Israel to surrender territory to the Arabs.
      • Looking back, his book had a very startling cover. It showed President Bush looking over his right shoulder at a hurricane, and in the eye of the hurricane was a Star of David, the symbol of Israel. Hurricane Katrina did not occur until a year later in August of 2005.
    • The Gaza Withdrawal
      • Take, for example, Hurricane Katrina. It was directly related to our demand that Israel surrender Gaza. That withdrawal began on August 7, 2005, and continued through the 22nd. During that time, nearly 9,000 Israelis were uprooted from their land and homes. Many had been living in the area for as long as 35 years.
      • It was a heart-wrenching event to watch women and children manhandled, synagogues violated, Torah scrolls desecrated, houses bulldozed, graves dug up, and farms destroyed. Entire Jewish communities were forcibly removed from land which God has given to the Jewish people as an everlasting possession (Psalm 105:8-11).
      • The economic impact on the Israeli economy was overwhelming. The farms in Gaza represented 70% of Israel’s organic produce, 60% of the nation’s exported herbs, 15% of its total agricultural exports, 60% of its exported cherry tomato crop, and $120 million of its flower exports.
      • While this travesty was taking place, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began applying more pressure with the following statement: “Everyone empathizes with what the Israelis are facing . . . but it cannot be Gaza only.”
    • The Supernatural Response
      • The withdrawal ended on August 22, and on the very next day, the government of Bermuda announced that a tropical depression had formed off its coast. Dubbed “Katrina,” the storm quickly developed into the most powerful hurricane in modern history. It slammed into New Orleans and the Mississippi coast four days later on the 27th. The hurricane disrupted 25% of our crude oil production and destroyed our nation’s largest port (the 5th largest in the world in terms of tonnage).
    • Déja Vu All Over Again
      • Like Katrina, I believe the latest hurricanes (Helene and Milton) are God’s response to our mistreatment of Israel. We have tolerated anti-Semitic demonstrations, and our government has shown indifference toward Israel as the nation fights for its very existence on six fronts: Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza, Yemen, and Iran.
      • President Biden has talked tough about backing Israel, but his words have proved hollow. He is holding up the shipment of military supplies approved by Congress. And behind the scenes, he is pressing the Israeli Prime Minister to pursue a policy of appeasement toward the terrorist groups attacking Israel, instead of seeking their annihilation. The bottom line is that Biden is more interested in helping Kamala win the votes of Muslims in the state of Minnesota than helping Israel win its war.
    • Attempts to Respond Spiritually
      • In response to Katrina, the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, called for a statewide day of prayer: “As we face the devastation wrought by Katrina, as we search for those in need, as we comfort those in pain, and as we begin the long task of rebuilding, we turn to God for strength, hope, and comfort.”
      • Noble words. But notice, there was no call to repentance.
      • In like manner, President Bush called for a national day of prayer on September 8. He asked the nation to pray for the victims and to reach out to them in compassion. Again, noble words, but no expression of repentance.
    • A Call to Prayer
      • We as a nation have set our jaw against God. We are tempting Him to move us from judgment to destruction. Our God is so merciful. He is patiently sending us one wake-up call after another because He never pours out His wrath without warning.
      • Pray that our eyes will be opened and our hearts melted. Pray for a great national revival. Pray too for the hearts of our leaders to be opened to the significance of Israel in Bible prophecy.

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S.C. storm survivors rattled by cluster of earthquakes

SC Earthquake cluster

Important Takeaways:

  • Nine total earthquakes — eight of which hit Sunday — were mainly near Coronaca with the largest being 2.5 magnitude on Sunday morning.
  • Dozens of people felt the quakes and many took to social media to say they felt the rumbling Sunday in Greenwood County. But no damage was reported.
  • After the group of six quakes Sunday morning, a 2.1 magnitude quake rattled 2.8 miles from Coronaca around 2:40 p.m. Sunday — making it the seventh quake on Sunday.
  • Then, the eighth Sunday incident happened at 3:15 p.m. when a 1.5 magnitude quake struck 2.5 miles south-southeast of Coronaca.
  • In Greenwood County, about 315 homes were damaged by Helene and about 12,000 residents have already applied for assistance from FEMA

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Severe solar storm could strain US power grids even more while dealing with two major hurricanes

solar flare

Important Takeaways:

  • A severe solar storm is headed to Earth that could stress power grids even more as the U.S. deals with major back-to-back hurricanes, space weather forecasters said Wednesday.
  • The sun is near the peak of its current 11-year cycle, sparking all the recent solar activity.
  • NOAA issued a severe geomagnetic storm watch for Thursday into Friday after an outburst from the sun was detected earlier this week.
  • Such a storm could temporarily disrupt power and radio signals.
  • NOAA has notified operators of power plants and orbiting spacecraft to take precautions.
  • It also alerted the Federal Emergency Management Agency about possible power disruptions, as the organization copes with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene and gears up for Hurricane Milton barreling across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida.

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Temperature of the water around Florida could really make this an interesting Hurricane season

Florida-Water-Temps

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Important Takeaways:

  • Florida ocean temperatures at ‘downright shocking’ levels
  • Not only is Florida sizzling in record-crushing heat, but the ocean waters that surround it are scorching, as well. The unprecedented ocean warmth around the state — connected to historically warm oceans worldwide — is further intensifying its heat wave and stressing coral reefs, with conditions that could end up strengthening hurricanes.
  • That heat dome has made coastal waters extremely warm, including “downright shocking” temperatures of 92 to 96 degrees in the Florida Keys
  • The toasty waters are influencing temperatures on land by raising the humidity, which makes it harder for temperatures to cool off at night. Numerous records for temperatures and heat indexes have been broken since mid-June, and the heat wave is expected to continue for at least a week. According to McNoldy, Miami’s heat index soared to 110 degrees on Monday and has reached at least 100 on 30 straight days.

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U.S. government forecasts above-normal 2021 Atlantic hurricane season

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government on Thursday forecast an above-normal 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, which is already off to an early start with a storm expected to form off Bermuda this week.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast between three and five major hurricanes, with sustained winds of at least 111 miles per hour (178 kph), will form in 2021.

Between six and 10 hurricanes with winds of at least 74 mph (119 kph) are expected out of 13-20 tropical storms in 2021, NOAA forecasters said. Tropical storms have winds of at least 39 mph (63 kph).

The average for tropical cyclones in the Atlantic between 1991 and 2020 is three major hurricanes, seven hurricanes and 14 tropical storms. The average increased after NOAA shifted the 30-year period used to set the averages earlier this year.

The 2020 hurricane season was the most active on record and produced 30 named tropical storms.

Matthew Rosencrans, head of forecasting for the U.S. National Weather Service, said climate change affects storm intensity.

“Climate change has not been linked to the frequency of storms but is has been linked to the intensity of storms,” Rosencrans said.

Academic and commercial meteorologists have also predicted an above-average season for 2021, but not as busy as 2020 because of an end to the La Nina system that promotes storm formation.

Although the hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and continues through Nov. 30, tropical storms in May are not unusual.

“In recent years, we’ve had quite a few storms form prior to June 1,” said Philip Klotzbach, who leads Atlantic hurricane season forecasting at Colorado State University. “Since 2015, we’ve had at least one named storm form prior to June 1 each year.”

There have been 19 named storms in May since 1950, Klotzbach said.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba, additional reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Marguerita Choy and Andrew Heavens)

Florida consumers ‘flabbergasted’ as property insurers push for double-digit rate hikes

By Suzanne Barlyn

(Reuters) – Florida property insurers are jacking up rates by double-digit percentages, blaming the hikes on lingering damage from past hurricanes, a wave of litigation, and a law that encourages lawyers to sue by allowing courts to award them big fees.

The rate increases in Florida, the third-largest property insurance market among U.S. states, are the highest in memory, according to some insurance agents and residents. One danger, they say, is that the new rates could make owning a home in Florida unaffordable.

“I was flabbergasted,” said Karlos Horn, a 35-year-old law student who owns a four-bedroom, single-family home in Hendry County, Florida. He said his premium doubled to $200 per month last August.

That is equivalent to half of his $400 mortgage payment and the largest increase in his five years as an owner.

Florida’s property insurance market, which collected $56.6 billion in premiums during 2019, is unique and covers complex risks including devastating hurricanes and the impact of climate change. Many insurers left the state after suffering big losses from hurricanes Katrina and Wilma in 2005, leaving about 60 small and mid-sized firms underwriting property policies there today.

Although there were no major weather events last year, some insurers are still grappling with claims from Hurricane Irma in 2017, said Logan McFaddin, an American Property Casualty Insurance Association executive who specializes in Florida.

They are also facing what McFaddin described as “out of control” litigation in Florida, partly because of a law that can require insurers to pay attorneys “excessive fees” in those cases. The practice has spurred a cottage industry of contractors and lawyers who sue insurers to replace a whole roof when only a few tiles are damaged, insurers say.

Other less dramatic problems, such as leaky pipes, happen at an “abnormally high” frequency in Florida, often causing severe damage, including mold, consistently gnawing at profits, said Charles Williamson, chief executive officer of Vault, a Florida-based insurance exchange for wealthy individuals.

Insurers are also passing along to consumers the cost of hefty rate hikes for their own coverage, known as reinsurance, which kicks in after insurers pay a set amount of claims.

INSURER OF LAST RESORT

Florida’s domestic property insurers reported a more than $1 billion underwriting loss for the first three quarters of 2020 and almost $500 million in negative net income, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

“Insurance carriers understand that their role in our marketplace is to pay claims,” Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier told Reuters. “The challenge is when those claims are so much more expensive than they expect, it creates uncertainty, it creates turmoil – and that has to be addressed.”

Florida insurers requested 105 rate increases during the first ten months of 2020, Altmaier said. More than half of the increases that regulators approved were greater than 10%.

Last month, Altmaier testified before Florida lawmakers, including his views on roofing litigation. “We need to really spend some time on this … coming up with ways that we might be able to mitigate this kind of activity,” he said.

Lee Gorodetsky, an insurance agent in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said he cannot recall such steep rate hikes during his 34-year career. “The last two years have been the worst we’ve seen,” he said.

As prices rise, more consumers are turning to Citizens Property Insurance Corp, Florida’s insurer of last resort, which takes on high-risk customers who cannot obtain other insurance or must pay extremely high rates.

Citizens issued 545,000 policies as of Feb. 5, a 23% increase from a year ago, and it expects the number to grow to about 700,000 by year-end, a spokesman said. The growth signals an unhealthy broader market by showing that typical coverage is not as widely available, industry experts said.

Insurers are hoping Florida’s state government will approve proposed legislation that would curb the elevated litigation costs they have seen in recent years. The bill, if passed, would add to other reforms enacted in 2019.

Measures would include limiting the fees insurers must pay lawyers in claims disputes, shortening time frames for filing claims and capping payouts for roof replacements.

However, the bill might also harm homeowners’ ability to pursue legitimate claims, lawyers said. That would unfairly favor insurers, one lawyer said.

“It’s a great business model that insurers can collect premiums and not get sued when they don’t pay somebody right away everything that’s owed,” said Tampa lawyer Chip Merlin, who represents policyholders. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that that’s good for the insurance industry.”

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn in Washington Crossing, Pa.; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Matthew Lewis)

‘There’s no food’: U.S.-bound migrant caravan hunkers down after Guatemala crackdown

By Luis Echeverria

VADO HONDO, Guatemala (Reuters) – Hundreds of mostly Honduran migrants huddled overnight on a highway in eastern Guatemala after domestic security forces used sticks and tear gas to halt the passage of a U.S.-bound caravan just days before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

As many as 8,000 migrants, including families with young children, have entered Guatemala since Friday, authorities say, fleeing poverty and lawlessness in a region rocked by the coronavirus pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes in November.

“There’s no food or water, and there are thousands of children, pregnant women, babies, and they don’t want to let us pass,” said a Honduran stuck at the blockade who gave his name only as Pedro.

Guatemalan authorities said late on Sunday they have sent 1,568 migrants back home since Friday, the vast majority to Honduras. Nearly 100 were returned to El Salvador.

A Reuters witness said about 2,000 migrants were still camped out on the highway near the village of Vado Hondo, about 55 km (34 miles) from the borders of Honduras and El Salvador, after clashing with Guatemalan security forces on Sunday.

“We’re starving,” said one Honduran mother, stuck behind the cordon with her 15-year-old son, her daughter, 9, and her 4-year-old niece.

“All we have is water and a few cookies,” said the woman, who declined to give her name, but added that she and other travelers had formed a prayer circle as they camped out.

Other migrants evaded the gridlock by fleeing into the hills to continue onward to the border of Mexico, where the government has deployed police and National Guard troopers.

“We ran into the mountains because I’m traveling with my one-year-old,” said Diany Deras, another Honduran.

Mexico’s border with Guatemala was quiet.

“All is calm here,” said a National Guardsman in charge of a border crossing directly opposite Tecun Uman, Guatemala, where caravan leaders hope to cross into Mexico. He sought anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media.

“I hope Guatemala contains them,” he added.

(Reporting by Luis Echeverria in Vado Hondo, Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Laura Gottesdiener in Tapachula; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Guatemalan families mourn death of children as hunger spreads

By Sofia Menchu

LA PALMILLA, Guatemala (Reuters) – Two-year-old Yesmin Anayeli Perez died this week of illnesses linked to malnutrition, the third small child to die from similar causes in an impoverished mountain village in eastern Guatemala within weeks, residents and health officials said.

Residents of the indigenous Mayan village, La Palmilla, and other parts of a region known as the Dry Corridor sunk deeper into poverty last year when economic damage wrought by droughts and two devastating hurricanes was compounded by the coronavirus lockdown.

The second of three children, Yesmin had a history of acute malnutrition, which causes rapid weight-loss and wasting, and for which she was hospitalized several times over the past year.

In the months before her death, Yesmin’s legs and arms were stick-like and her belly swollen by water retention, even though she had gained a little weight. Reuters visited her family in their home in October, where Yesmin, dressed in a purple t-shirt, was being fed a high protein mash by her mother.

In the early hours of Monday, Yesmin died, her eyes bulging and her frail body distorted by a persistent cough and long struggle with lung illness linked to her inadequate nutrition, her father Ignoja Perez told Reuters.

Just over half the normal weight for her age, she was suffering malnutrition and pneumonia made worse by the cold and damp weather that followed the hurricanes, local health official Santiago Esquivel said.

Sitting in front of her small coffin, in a home with a dirt floor and tin roof, her father said the family had been hopeful she would make a recovery.

“I bought her some vitamins on Sunday, to see if she would put on weight, we were going to start the treatment on Monday, with a spoonful,” Perez recalled. “But she got worse.”

Yesmin was buried on a hilltop along with some of her clothes, a bottle of water and a small, orange plastic drinking cup in a traditional ceremony on Tuesday.

The family had celebrated her second birthday with a bowl of chicken soup just a few weeks earlier.

The Guatemalan government denies that Yesmin was suffering malnutrition at the time of her death, or at any time during 2020. However, medical records reviewed by Reuters showed she was diagnosed as suffering from acute malnutrition at least until March.

Guatemala’s Food and Nutritional Security Secretariat said in a statement that Yesmin and her family had received support from authorities, in recognition that she had suffered malnutrition and lung problems at birth.

Asked why she was not classified as malnourished in 2020, the agency referred Reuters to the Health Ministry. The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

TRAPPED BY POVERTY

Government data show acute malnutrition among the under-fives rose by 80% in Guatemala in 2020 compared to 2019.

The government said the jump was partly due to improved methodology. However, data gathered by Oxfam last year also showed large increases in families facing food shortages, including a four-fold jump in severe shortages in the province around La Palmilla.

At least 46 children under five died of hunger-related causes in 2020 in Guatemala, according to the government data, well below previous years. Ivan Aguilar, a humanitarian program coordinator based in Guatemala at Oxfam, said the drop appeared to be due to officials attributing deaths related to malnutrition to other causes, including the case of Yesmin.

Yesmin was the third young child to die in the village of around 3,000 people since October, local health official Esquivel said. Yesmin was buried a few feet away from another girl who died on Dec. 26.

The deaths are unusual even in a region that grew tragically accustomed to such deaths after drought destroyed crops every year for half of the past decade, Esquivel added.

“Sometimes a child would die, but not like this, one after the other,” he said.

The crisis is driving a new round of migration north.  But in La Palmilla and other villages in the eastern highlands, people said they lack the money to up and leave.

Without work for months during a lockdown from February, Perez borrowed money and sold his coffee crop, spending the little he raised to pay for Yesmin’s treatment in nearby city Zacapa.

The two hurricanes in November wiped out his field of beans, leaving only corn in the ground, and the walls of his mud-block house cracked with the rain, letting the winter chill inside.

“I wish I could go to the United States, but without money, we have to stay,” he said, looking down at his daughter’s still body.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Stefanine Eschenbacher; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Rosalba O’Brien)

Honduras hurricanes push thousands into homelessness

By Jose Cabezas

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (Reuters) – Willian Castro and his family huddled on the roof of a banana packing plant for three days as Hurricane Eta raged last month, seeking to escape the torrential rains and floods that swept through his home and thousands of others.

His city of San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras was one of the areas worst hit by Eta and Hurricane Iota, which struck just two weeks later, deepening the economic hardship caused by the coronavirus pandemic in Central America.

Castro, 34, worked as a barber from his home, which was destroyed in the storms. He is now considering following thousands of Hondurans before him who saw emigration north as a way out of poverty.

“We will have to start over,” he said. “We can’t do it alone. If not, I’ll have to think about what many have done in the past, go to the United States.”

For now, Castro is living in a friend’s house near San Pedro Sula. Private organizations have given his family food, and neighbors who receive remittances from relatives in the United States have also helped.

“The government has not given us anything,” Castro said.

Julissa Mercado, a spokeswoman for government disaster agency COPECO, said the area around San Pedro Sula received food aid, but that it was inevitable that some people would say they had not received assistance.

Nationwide, some 4.5 million people – half the Honduran population – have been impacted by the hurricanes and their aftermath, including landslides and rain that submerged entire communities, the government said. More than 85,200 homes were damaged and 6,100 destroyed.

In Castro’s old neighborhood, the accumulated rainwater is a meter high in some areas, and downed power poles and trees, furniture and appliances still clutter the streets.

Some 95,000 people in San Pedro Sula have taken refuge in shelters. Thousands of others sleep each night in flimsy sheds made of wood and plastic sheets, on sidewalks or under bridges.

President Juan Orlando Hernandez has called for help from other nations. “It’s the worst disaster that we have experienced in the history of the Republic of Honduras,” he said on Thursday at an event recognizing first responders.

Even before the twin storms, which also killed 100 people, Honduras was expecting an economic contraction of 10.5% this year due to the pandemic.

“After losing their homes, assets and even their jobs, people who were already poor are now even worse off,” said Nelson Garcia, director of the Mennonite Social Action Commission (CASM), a human rights organization.

(Reporting by Jose Cabezas and Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Adriana Barrera, Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and John Stonestreet)