On June 3, 2018 in the afternoon – Fuego Volcano near Antigua, Guatemala violently erupted sending pyroclastic lava flow down the mountainside, decimating villages in its path, resulting in what many have seen in the Ruins of Pompeii in Italy.
For more information on what happened that day, please read this article from The Atlantic that shows photos from that terrible day.
From the next day, so many people asked how they could help. Donations poured in from all over the country of Guatemala and the world. Emergency shelters were set up in nearby Escuintla, Guatemala. Thousands of displaced persons were placed in various churches and schools while rescue workers continued to search for survivors in the days that followed.
So many of you joined Clean Water for the World in seeking out how to best provide clean water for the survivors. Two weeks after the explosion, we went down to Escuintla to visit the shelters and investigate how best to help amidst such a crisis situation.
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After visiting several shelters and talking with the government workers in charge (much like FEMA in the US), we concluded that it was still too critical situation with changes happening everyday that it would not be prudent for us to install a purifier right away. For many, as seen above, the immediate needs were taken care of – especially water. However, for the medium to long-term plans, we remained in contact with the government shelters to keep status on the transition shelters that were being built for the displaced persons.
We still wanted to make sure we did all that we could to ensure we were best meeting the needs of those in need in the best way possible. We attended a meeting with various NGOs providing medical and shelter care and learned of other communities that are also effected by the explosion but were not displaced. We stayed in contact with those NGOs and were able to install a purifier in Aldea Morelia, a community that is completely cut off from the rest of the world during the rainy season due to 4 rivers that they must cross in order to get to the community.
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On July 20-21, 2018, CWFW was able to install a purifier in partnership with Aldea Morelia and REKKO, a NGO that provides access to health care services and partners with the public health ministry to provide access to healthcare in remote areas.
We are grateful to be able to do this thanks to your support. Further, we are partnering with an anonymous donor to help install two more purifiers in the near future.
We want to thank you for working with us on providing relief to those effected by Fuego Volcano and we will be updating you back here on the forthcoming plans. Since our visit to the shelters, they have since built a transitional shelter for families and displaced persons from communities that were destroyed by the volcano explosion. We are looking forward to working with them to get access to clean water to those also displaced.
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You can still donate here: https://www.firstgiving.com/event/cw4w/Volcan-Fuego-Relief
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