WASHINGTON (CNS): Hurricane Maria was a body blow to Puerto Rico in 2017, one from which it has yet to fully recover.
Then came the series of 5-magnitude-and-higher earthquakes that began on December 29 — topped off by three such temblors in a 30-minute span on January 7 and followed by a magnitude 5.9 quake on January 11 — that has resulted in only two confirmed deaths, but untold losses in property damage. And not only the earthquakes, but their many aftershocks.
Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez Nieves of San Juan, lives on the northern part of the island, which was spared most of the worst effects of the quakes. But on a January 10 visit to the island’s southern region in the Diocese of Ponce — what he could see of it — the damage was much worse.
“I got around by car,” Archbishop Gonzalez said. “But I wasn’t able to go everywhere I wanted to because a bridge here or there collapsed.”
Driving around Ponce, the archbishop told Catholic News Service in a January 10 telephone interview from near San Juan, “I saw a number of people In Ponce now with their suitcases and looking for a place to find shelter.”
“I can see lots of damage,” he said. Archbishop Gonzalez added, “I didn’t see many buildings that had collapsed, but you see buildings with pieces of cement, pieces of the roof that have fallen off. It will take a while for structural engineers to make an assessment. The cathedral has bene quite damaged. I say it might take a year or two to fix the cathedral.”
People are sleeping in tents and spending most of their waking hours outside, he noted, fearing an aftershock might cause more of their homes to crumble.
Complicating people’s quest to find shelter is the weather. It has been raining on the island. Archbishop Gonzalez, during the interview, said it was raining heavily, and that the quake also has affected telephone and Internet service on Puerto Rico.
Another fear is people not knowing where their next meal is coming from as there are many people without food.
Archbishop Gonzalez said he saw a district where there are at least 400 people homeless, and Caritas has been doing their best to provide them with food.
One difference Archbishop Gonzalez noted between a hurricane and an earthquake is that people can prepare for a hurricane but they cannot prepare for an earthquake as there may be no warning.
The archbishop said there were aftershocks every day which continued to affect the structure of buildings, posing a danger to people inside. “One becomes afraid — what’s going to happen next?”
He recalled one morning receiving a call from a priest in Guanica, on the south side of the island who asked for volunteers to distribute food from the large trucks of Caritas and Catholic Charities. He finally recruited 100 volunteers going across the island to the town of Guanica to give help. “It shows the spirit of solidarity, and the goodness among the people. It’s very touching.”
Catholic Charities of the United States has established a Puerto Rico disaster relief fund that can accessed online at https://bit.ly/30hHwQd.
