Guatemala: A Review of Historic and Recent Relocation Processes Provoked by Disasters of Natural Origin
Due to its topography, geographic location at the intersection between three active tectonic plates and in the path of tropical hurricanes in the Caribbean region of the American hemisphere, Guatemala has been experiencing disasters throughout the centuri
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Guatemala: A Review of Historic and Recent Relocation Processes Provoked by Disasters of Natural Origin Yojana Miner Fuentes and Juan Carlos Villagra´n de Leo´n
1 Guatemala: A Land Exposed to Many Natural Hazards Due to its topography, geographic location at the intersection between three active tectonic plates and in the path of tropical hurricanes in the Caribbean region of the American hemisphere, Guatemala has been experiencing disasters throughout the centuries. As a product of the interaction between the Cocos, Caribbean, and North American plates, major earthquakes have destroyed communities and livelihoods; damaged or destroyed essential infrastructure for transportation, health, and education; and provoked economic losses, exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars. The earthquake on 4 February 1976 caused over 23,000 fatalities and affected over 5 million inhabitants throughout the country (OFDA-CRED, 2007). In a similar fashion, hurricanes have also caused disasters in floodplains and halted processes associated with development in urban and rural towns, leading to heavy impacts in the agricultural sector and on road infrastructure. The latest episode is hurricane Stan which occurred in September 2005 and led to major losses, only 7 years after hurricane Mitch impacted the rest of Central America in October and November 1998. Landslides, triggered either by intense rainfall or earthquakes, are feared due to their capacity to bury entire communities. Less frequent but equally destructive are eruptions of volcanoes such as Fuego and Santiaguito. Along the same lines, drought has also manifested itself, impacting rural communities, such as in the case of the drought of the year 2001 which forced the national government to declare a state of national calamity due to the geographical extent of the event (Government of Guatemala, 2001; Prensa Libre, 2001).
Y.M. Fuentes (*) Coordinadora Nacional para la Reduccio´n de Desastres, CONRED, Guatemala, Guatemala e-mail: [email protected] T. Afifi, J. Ja¨ger (eds.), Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-12416-7_12, Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
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Y.M. Fuentes and J.C. Villagra´n de Leo´n
1.1 Historical Forced Displacements Provoked by Disasters in Guatemala The first written accounts of forced displacements due to natural phenomena within Guatemala can be traced to the year 1541 during the period of the invasion by Spanish conquistadores. On 11 September 1541, torrential rainfall which could be associated with a tropical hurricane triggered a massive landslide that buried the town of Santiago de los Caballeros. At that time the latter was the location of the Spanish government in Central America (Juarros, 1936). The town was located on the foothills of the Agua volcano, and as a consequence of the disaster, the government decided to relocate the city and its survivors to the central part of the valley and further away from the slopes of the volcano. Two centuries later, in July 1773, the new city of Sant
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