| Economic policies cause more damage El Salvador is an environmental disaster. 97% of the country is de-forested, 77% is severely eroded, and 40% of the land has been deemed unsuited for development, but has been developed nonetheless. According to Ricardo Navaro of El Salvador's Center for Appropriate Technology, "Economic policies that promote environmental destruction, poverty, and economic inequality exacerbate any natural disaster," referring to development models promoted by international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Residents of Santa Tecla and environmental groups have been demanding for years that the hill (part of the Balsam Corridor) above Las Colinas not be developed because the land was unstable due to de-forestation. Their protest made its way to the Supreme Court, which sided with the Development Corporation. Luxury homes were built on the hillside. Now hundreds of homes at the bottom are buried and hundreds of people are dead. On the evening of the quake, President Flores visited the Las Colinas landslide site, and was confronted by an angry mob denouncing his publicity show. Recognizing the government's partial responsibility in the disaster, and the lack of appropriate emergency response, family members of those killed surrounded Flores and screamed at him - they demanded heavy machinery to remove rubble in order to save their loved ones; they demanded food, water, and shelter. Flores's security detail had to remove him from the site when people tried to attack him. |