While Haiti and Chile face years of rebuilding from two massive quakes, Nicaragua still bears the scars of its powerful 1972 temblor and the tonnes of twisted steel and cement it left behind are now scavenging grounds for the poor.
Mounds of debris from crumbled buildings that were dumped into Xolotlan Lake after the quake are now being brought up and heaped onshore in a government cleanup program that has turned into a godsend for needy scrap metal sellers.
“I’ve been coming here for a month to pick up metal and sell it to buy food, because there are no jobs in this country,” 35-year-old Maritza Guevara said as she sifted through the mass of cement and steel with the help of one of her five children.
Nicaragua is the Western Hemisphere’s second poorest country after Haiti with close to 50 percent underemployment rate and a scant US$995 of GDP per capita, IMF figures from 2008 showed.
“With what we scrounge, we can barely eat because we just have enough for some rice and beans” for the kids, Guevara said.
Children as young as 10 help their parents break clumps of cement apart to free at least 46kg of rebar and scrap iron in a day that is sold for US$8.50 to scrap metal merchants waiting in nearby trucks.
“I only come here to bust up cement so I can buy food for my eight brothers,” said 15-year-old Jose Ruiz, who was demolishing the rubble after school — he is in the fourth grade.
The Dec. 23, 1972, earthquake in Managua killed 5,000 people and left more than a quarter million homeless. The rubble of countless buildings and homes was by government decision dumped in Xolotlan Lake, also known as Lake Managua, one of the biggest and most polluted in Nicaragua.
The administration of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega a year ago obtained international funding to restore the lake back to health. One month ago, dredgers and other heavy equipment began pulling the rubble from the lake’s murky bottom.
As soon as the material began piling up onshore, people from the poorer districts of Managua and nearby towns of Manchester, Cristo del Rosario, Acahualinca and Ruben Dario descended on the lakeshore to work on it day and night.
“It’s tough work, but we’ve got no choice; there are no jobs,” said Fredy Sirias, 21, as he toiled atop some slabs at the water’s edge.
Sirias cannot read or write. He left home near the capital a month ago to make some money to support his 16-year-old fiancee and their first baby expected next month.
“With the money I make, I can buy food and diapers,” he said.
“It’s the only job we’ve got for now,” said 39-year-old Silvio Munoz, who was sharing the rubble pile with Sirias.
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