The images of families living in tarp-covered shelters, weathering wind and rain, have slipped away from the media's eye. But Costa Rica quietly continues to work to put together the pieces after the Jan. 8 earthquake.
Damage estimates
Homes
$35,783,000
Production, employment
$24,168,503
Infrastructure
$14,987,436
Basic services
$5,026,737
Environment
$56,225,455
Cariblanco power plant
$365,533,782
Total: $501,715,914
Source: Rebuilding Commission |
Six months on, not even 40 of the nearly 1,000 families displaced by the 6.2 earthquake have been relocated into permanent homes, according to Housing Minister Clara Zomer. However, she said 265 families have accepted relocation and projects are underway to house them by mid-August.
One project in Tambor, Alajuela, northwest of the capital, began last month. Volunteers and staff with the charity Habitat for Humanity Costa Rica are building homes for 13 families who saw theirs toppled by the quake.
The state's Mixed Institute for Social Aid has been subsidizing the monthly rent of 884 families, totalling ¢426,036,222 ($744,818), according to a report released Wednesday by the government's Rebuilding Commission.
The report also offers the latest estimates (see box) of the damage caused by the quake, which struck near the Poas Volcano, 30 kilometers north of San José, and rippled through the provinces of Alajuela and Heredia, killing as many as 30 people.
All told, 3,000 people evacuated their homes and took refuge in shelters.
Iliana Ramírez, a 21-year-old single mom, didn't trust the shelters as a safe place for her 3-year-old daughter, Carolay Arroyo. In fact, Ramírez had already lost most of her valuables when looters sacked her home in Dulce Nombre, Alajuela, after the quake rendered it uninhabitable, she said.
Ramírez and Arroyo are one of the families whose home is being built in Tambor, in a project Habitat officials said could be completed by late August.
The housing minister told The Tico Times obstacles remain in finding housing for many of the families who refuse to leave their towns, after studies showed swaths of the earthquake zone should not be built upon and other areas where zoning laws simply don't permit it.
“We're working together with residents and municipal governments to locate the most adequate places for those families and to see if it's necessary to change the municipal zoning law,” Zomer said.
As for the families already moving into Tambor, they seem hopeful for a new start.
Holding young Carolay in her arms, Ramírez said, “ we have to move on, for us but especially for the kids.” |
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