Death in the Tragic Triangle

GUATEMALA EN PIE (Guatemala is on its feet) read hand-lettered placards taped to newly installed plate-glass windows in Guatemala City shops and restaurants last week. That was an exaggeration, but the country had at least risen to its knees and was fighting to recover from one of the most destructive earthquakes ever to hit the Western Hemisphere (TIME, Feb. 16). Last week the terrible toll continued to climb as new victims were found--nearly 19,000 dead, 66,000 wounded, at least 1,000,000 homeless.* Amid the miasma of death, new clouds of dust rose from 800 smaller aftershocks that continued to frighten the country; nonetheless, Guatemalans cleared away rubble to make way for rebuilding. Optimists even talked about a revival of the lucrative tourist trade, which provides Guatemala with $85 million a year in foreign exchange.

Cooked Beans. Surveys indicated that the tremor had devastated a tragic triangle of 2,700 sq. mi., extending from Siquinala in the south and Gualan in the northeast, above the so-called Motagua Fault (see box). Even as dazed survivors stumbled out of the wreckage of 40 towns and villages, massive aid appeared. The first relief came from Guatemalans whose towns had been spared and who reached out to help. In the highlands village of Patzun, which had been almost totally leveled, a truck bearing tortillas and beans appeared; it had been sent from the town of Santiago Atitlan, 70 miles away. The trip had taken seven hours as the travelers picked their way carefully around landslides. But Mayor Pedro Sosof Mesias, who led the expedition, proudly explained that the beans "are already cooked and ready to be eaten. We had to help."

Relief also came from more than 20 nations--including Nicaragua, where only three years ago another earthquake devastated Managua, the capital, killing 10,000. The U.S. organized an airlift, carrying everything from water tanks and tents to a fully staffed 100-bed field hospital. Private agencies and church groups also volunteered aid.

Guatemala's towns will eventually come back to life, but hundreds of thousands of survivors will be forever scarred by memories of the terror. At the U.S. military hospital set up near Chimaltenango, TIME Correspondent Bernard Diederich vainly tried to comfort a weeping Indian girl; she cried not from the pain of a broken leg but because no one could tell her what had happened to her family. Hundreds of corpses were hastily buried in mass graves; some names were recorded but other bodies were interred with the briefest of notations, such as: "Found in Guatemala City Zone 5, was wearing red dress, had one gold tooth."

Many victims in the town of San Martin Jilotepeque had been interred in shallow graves that were clawed open by hungry dogs. As a result, loose dogs in the area were being shot on sight.

Crumbled Adobe. Those who could least afford to rebuild their lives and homes were hardest hit. Most hotels, office buildings and homes in upper-class neighborhoods in Guatemala City survived. Ever since a 1917 earthquake that destroyed the city, such buildings have been designed with shocks in mind. The heaviest damage and most of the casualties occurred in country villages where crumbling adobe walls dropped heavy tile roofs on sleeping victims. The highland Indians were stunned at how easily their homes had disintegrated. "We need wood," said one who had saved his family of six but lost his house. "We cannot build of adobe again. It is of earth and it is our coffin."

Others died in wood and tin shantytowns on Guatemala City's outskirts. Even as the tremors subsided, the shanty dwellers clung resolutely to the rubble, shivering in the cold night air. They had little choice--the land actually belonged to the municipality and since they had no title, the only recourse was to claim it again as squatters, once bulldozers had swept away the debris.

* Considering Guatemala's modest (6 million) population, comparable quake damage in the U.S. would have killed 672,000 people and left 37 million homeless.

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