Disaster response at Chinchín

About an hour into my journey to Quito on 4th February, I noticed that everyone was crowding over on the left hand side of the bus to look out over the gorge. I managed to get a peek – they were looking at a very muddy waterfall – it had rained a lot last night.

I discovered later that this was the famous (in Ecuador) waterfall el Manto de la Novia “the Bride’s Veil” – so named for its form and clear white colour. On 3rd February, a flash flood destroyed houses above the waterfall, and a tourist lodge below, killing some residents and leaving others homeless.

El Manto de la Novia - before and after the disaster.  
You can see the lodge at the bottom of the falls in the first photo - in the second it's just a mound of mud.

After all the high-profile aid work going on in Haiti it was interesting to see a need for disaster relief so close to home, and wonderful to be part of the response from the surrounding communities. Last week with the youth group from church we collected groceries and clothes from people in Shell and on Saturday took them up to the village of Chinchín, where the residents had been affected by the flood.

We divided the food (rice, pasta, beans, salt, sugar, oil, tuna…) into 12 bags, giving one to each of the homeless families, and left the clothes with a local lady who was managing donations. Alas all the photos of our good work were lost – serves me right for trying to get ‘that perfect aid-worker shot’!

The waterfall has totally changed its course and is now no longer the beautiful attraction it once was. I guess this will be a blow for tourism in the area as well, although the families are likely to rebuild their houses in the same location.

(P.S. No they haven't got wireless internet in Santa Rosa - after a delay of a couple of days because of the fuel situation, we decided to put our trip into the jungle back a week, so we're in the office still with a chance to finish some reports - then we go in to start work on the spring protection next Monday. )