Hurricane Survivors In Urgent Need Of Aid

Isolation And Distrust Stand Between Remote Villages And The Help They Need To Rebuild

(AP) 
The eye of the hurricane passed directly over the Honduran-Nicaraguan coast, devastating seaside villages and island fishing hubs that were home to the Miskitos Indians, descendants of Indians, European settlers and African slaves.

The region is reachable only by plane or canoe in good weather and has a long-standing mistrust of the central government.

Disgruntled villagers came together on beach the region's main town of Puerto Cabezas, which has become the hub of relief efforts and official search missions for any survivors. Others set out on their own to try to find missing loved ones.

Survivors from fishing communities off the coast said Nicaraguan authorities sailed by and sent out evacuation warnings only hours before the eye hit. Many lobster divers were already out at sea by then, and the waves and wind were too strong for their primitive sailboats. Hundreds of others were trapped on tiny distant cayes swallowed whole by the violent storm surge.

The storm hit during the last two weeks of lobster season, the main source of income for most residents. Hundreds of fishermen and lobster divers, many of whom swim deep to the ocean floor simply by holding their breath, were caught at sea in open boats. Many women who work small businesses on the reefs selling food and supplies to the lobstermen were marooned.

Among them was Aurora Prada, a 39-year-old single mother of five, who said the sea was already wild by the time they received word of the fast-approaching hurricane. She piled into a boat with several others and rode out the storm in a swampy, protected area of the cayes. They spent hours bailing out seawater as bodies floated by, and were eventually rescued by a passing boat.

"The government is partly to blame because they warned us really late," she said.