On Jan. 13, 2001, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale shook the small Central American nation of El Salvador, killing more than 800 people. Most victims were buried under a massive landslide in a housing development called "Las Colinas" in the Santa Tecla community near the capital of San Salvador. Fourteen months later survivors continue to struggle to rebuild their lives.

Workers are busy repairing and rebuilding homes on the periphery of the two-block-wide area that was swept away by the landslide, but most of the area remains a wasteland. Here and there, there are patches of white lime thrown on the ground to reduce the possibility of disease and to suppress the foul smell from decomposing bodies and body parts still trapped underneath the earth. 

There are also makeshift monuments, some with the names of victims who died there and some with simply bunches of flowers drying in the intense heat.

Alejandro Flores, a civil engineer, is supervising the work on his house. The landslide swept away the front of his home and buried most of his neighbors. He has spent his own money from savings to carry out the reconstruction. He says the government has declared the Las Colinas area a risky place for construction, so banks will not give loans to people wanting to rebuild here.

Up the street, community leader David Valera Chavez works in the modest home he recently rebuilt. He lost his wife and a daughter in the disaster, but chose to remain here because it is his home. He says he used up all the savings he had put away for retirement to rebuild. He says the government has a responsibility to help people.

He says he never would have moved here if he had known of the risk. He says he liked living below a hill with trees and birds singing. According to Valera Chavez there were studies dating back to 1994 indicating that deforestation and 
constructions on the hill overlooking Las Colinas 

To make matters worse, he says he and other residents are still making mortgage payments to a government program that lent them money to buy their houses. In some cases, he says, people whose houses were completely destroyed are still obligated to pay.

A recent ruling by El Salvador's Supreme Court makes it difficult for survivors of the landslide to make claims for assistance. The court ruled that only direct victims could demand compensation, but, as Valera Chavez notes, the victims are all dead. He says insurance payments have also been of little help since they typically have paid only about 10 percent of the total cost of the house that was destroyed. 

Looking out his front door, Varela Chavez surveys the bleak emptiness of the devastated swath of land where the landslide fell. He sees a small bunch of flowers that he put out in remembrance of his lost loved ones. 

The government of President Francisco Flores has provided temporary housing and other assistance to earthquake victims, but officials say the massive destruction overwhelmed the nation's meager social assistance capabilities.

The earthquake in January, 2001 and another one a month later left more than 1,000 people dead and more than 20 percent of the country's six million inhabitants homeless. The country suffered about $2 billion in total damage.

The Salvadoran government has used nearly $400 million in foreign assistance to repair and restore infrastructure and to provide housing. The government has also put emphasis on repairing schools damaged by the quakes. 

But because El Salvador is a poor nation with few resources of its own to devote to recovery, the effects of last year's disasters are likely to be felt here for many years to come. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. State Department is warning that Americans traveling in four Italian cities this Easter Sunday could be targeted by extremist groups. 

After the warning was issued Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell urged U.S. citizens in Italy to take it seriously and exercise caution. 

The State Department says Americans in Venice, Florence, Milan and Verona should avoid large crowds on Sunday, when Christians celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus after his crucifixion. 

U.S. officials did not release the names of the extremist groups. In recent months, Italian authorities have detained several people on suspicion of ties to terrorist groups responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. 

Wednesday's warning by the State Department came just 10 days after it issued a worldwide caution, warning that extremists were planning terrorist attacks against U.S. interests.

Venezuela files
protest over rebels

CARACAS, Venezuela — This country has filed a formal protest with Colombia over claims that leftist guerrillas are operating from a base in Venezuelan territory. 

In a statement a week ago, Colombian Gen. Martin Orlando Carreno said Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels, known as FARC, used a base inside Venezuela to lob gas cylinders at his troops. 

Wednesday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Luis Alfonso Davila called Gen. Carreno's comment "malicious." He said Colombia cannot claim that one country is the only custodian of common borders, especially when the other country generates violence. 

Gen. Correno spoke March 21 after at least 32 soldiers and leftist guerrillas were killed in heavy fighting near the Venezuelan border. It was the heaviest fighting since peace talks with the FARC collapsed last month. 

Ties between the two Andean neighbors have been strained from time to time by suspicions that Venezuela's left-wing government sympathizes with Colombia's leftist rebels.

U.S. agrees that
El Niño is likely

The United Nations weather agency says the El Niño weather phenomenon, which caused thousands of deaths during its last appearance, could return. 

The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization in Geneva issued a statement Wednesday saying El Niño-type conditions exist in the eastern Pacific near Latin America, with heavy flooding seen in Peru and Ecuador. 

Other agencies have been saying the same thing for months.

El Niño is described as a disruption of the ocean atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific having important consequences for weather around the world. During an El Niño, winds that normally blow east and west over the equator ease, and surface waters in the eastern Pacific warm. 

The warming of the eastern Pacific, coupled with changes in air pressure, alter the course of the upper air jet stream that steers weather movement, resulting in precipitation changes. 

The last El Niño was in 1997-1998 and set off storms, heat waves and floods that killed thousands of people.
 

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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Residents  have raced to banks here for the third consecutive day in another frantic bid to convert pesos into U.S. dollars. Large crowds of nervous bank account holders waited in long lines Wednesday as riot police stood guard, watching for signs of trouble. 

Argentines have been flocking to Buenos Aires banks to change money because dollar sales are not permitted outside the metropolitan area at this time.

The run on the banks started after the peso dropped to record lows Monday, trading at four to the dollar — a loss in value of 300 percent since late January. The same day, the government announced new restrictions on currency exchanges.

The panic dollar-buying comes just days before a mission from the International Monetary Fund is due in Buenos Aires for another assessment of the country's financial situation. In December, the IMF refused to extend more than $1 billion in loans to Argentina, saying the government failed to control spending.

The government is seeking upwards of $20 billion in international aid to help revive the economy, which has been in recession nearly four years. 

Wednesday, the Inter-American Development Bank made $694 million available to the government in new loans. Argentina also is in default on $141 billion in public debt and is struggling to contain an unemployment rate that has reached the 20 percent mark.

Also Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told the U.S. television network CNBC he was hopeful Argentina would soon develop an economic reform program that would allow it to receive new IMF loans.

O'Neill also said he stressed that point last week when he met with Argentine Economy Minister Jorge Remes Lenicov during a U.N. summit in Monterrey, Mexico. 

Environmentalists
face deportation

QUITO, Ecuador — The government says it will immediately deport 14 foreigners who were detained for protesting the construction of an oil pipeline in a nature reserve. Authorities say the protesters were environmental activists who had camped out near the Mindo forest and bird habitat to protest the pipeline's planned route through the forest. 

According to the authorities, the protesters failed to respect property rights. The environmentalists told the French news agency they simply were protecting the environment. 

The pipeline would transport crude oil from Ecuador's oil-rich Amazon jungle to the Pacific Ocean. The government considers this a major investment that will help the Andean nation's economy. 

OAS names Peruvian
to panel on rights

The Organization of American States has unanimously elected a Peruvian educator and journalist to serve on its Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. 

The OAS announced Wednesday that Susana Villaran de la Puente will join the commission and replace Diego Garcia Sayan, Peru's foreign affairs minister. 

Peruvian Ambassador Eduardo Ferrero Costa says Ms. Villaran de la Puente's selection shows the OAS acknowledges Peru's commitment to promoting and protecting human rights and democracy. 

Ms. Villaran de la Puente served in the government of interim Peruvian President Valentin Paniagua. She will be on the human rights commission for the next four years.
 

No newspaper Friday A.M. Costa Rica will observe the Good Friday holiday here in Costa Rica by not publishing tomorrow. This is one of the three weekdays each year that the paper does not publish. We hope that our readers will take advantage of this time to check out the travel articles and the extensive listing of preserved archive pages.  Others are taking the day off, too. The U.S. Embassy is closed today and tomorrow. Supermarkets will work limited hours over the Easter weekend.