At the Site of the Landslide

Costa Rica made international headlines nine days ago when a landslide left 27 people dead. The avalanche took place on the other side of the city from us on the opposite side of the mountains from Tejarcillos. Rock and mudslides are very common here. Mostly they're a nuisance. Occasionally they're deadly.

Last night Cristina, one of our teachers in Tejarcillos, called and said that a friend of her sister's lived in a house that had been hit. They needed help getting the rest of the mud out of the house and would I be willing to take some folks there and help out. So today four of us went out to the site. What we found was shocking even nine days afterward.

Usually landslides happen where there are cliffs or steep dropoffs. Whatever makes up the side of the mountain gets wet and comes loose. It normally falls straight down in a fairly small area. That was what I imagined had happened this time, but it was completely different. This time the landslide took place about three miles up the mountain and came rushing through a mountain pass in a torrent of mud and rocks.

This is what I saw: The house we went to clean has a four-foot wall in front of it. There were mud stains three feet high up the wall. Unfortunately, the weight of the onslaught forced open a door and broke through a metal panel of the gate, allowing the mud to rush into the house. The family had heard the noise and screams before the torrent reached them and got out of bed (it was between 2 and 3 a.m. when it hit). They ran to a neighbor's house behind them which was slightly out of the path of the onslaught. Everyone got there safely. At the house I saw a bed frame about a foot high. It was still completely covered in mud. All the appliances that were on the floor (refrigerator, stove, etc.) were destroyed. Our job was to clear away the foot-deep mud in a utility room.

In front of the house was a small river. Its banks were 15-20 apart, about eight feet high, though the water was 6-12 inches deep and maybe eight feet wide. I said to Cristina, "Now I can see what happened. This river must have flooded and become a torrent with all the rain and helped bring down all this debris from the mountain." Cristina told me, "Steve, you don't get it. That river wasn't there before." It had been created by the landslide.

The work went quickly and so we decided to hike up to where the worst of the damage had occurred. Again, the only word for it was "shocking." You could see where one house had been spared by a few feet and the house next door had been wiped out because of the whims of the twists and turns of the onslaught. We saw where there had been houses just nine days earlier, and now there was nothing. Well, almost nothing. The families were wiped out. There was twisted corrigated metal and splintered lumber. A child's backpack with Winnie-the-Pooh on it. Two blankets that had once kept someone warm on the chilly nights there. Ruined speakers from a sound system resting fifty feet apart. I wondered what songs they had played the last day they were used.

There were boulders as big as trucks. Water still shot 20-25 feet in the air from a ruptured pipe. We hiked maybe 1000 feet up the mountain. We finally reached a point where we could see the top of where the landslide started. It was maybe three quarters of a mile away and another 1000 feet up. We couldn't see below it though from our vantage point. This was another shock. There was a small bald spot way up the mountain. It looked like nothing. Apparently the little bald spot had grown and picked up speed like the proverbial snowball on the way down.

Afterward we had lunch at the house to which the family had retreated. They asked me to say the blessing. I was thankful for the food and fellowship. Thankful for all those that God spared. I trust that He was in control that night. But there's still so much I don't understand. It was hard to say thanks for this meal when so many others nearby were displaced, grieving, or dead. I prayed anyway. I hope you will too.