Sitting in the shade of the trees, watching their children play, I found several families who had to leave their homes due to the destruction left by the earthquake of October 9 in different communities of the province of Coclé. The children ran and laughed around a shelter set up at the regional headquarters of the Institute for the Training and Development of Human Resources (Ifarhu), located in Penonomé, oblivious, at times, to the difficult situation their families are going through.
As of yesterday, 132 people remained in four shelters set up due to the emergency, while hundreds of educational centers continued to be inspected to determine if their students could safely return to the classrooms. At the shelter, even pets have space; they were brought there to safeguard their lives. The emergency has disrupted the routine of entire families: not only in their homes but also their ways of working, and in the case of children and adolescents it has paralyzed their school year, which is in its last term.
According to Cecibel Jarquín, provincial director of the Ministry of Social Development (Mides), the institution’s teams, in coordination with other entities, have carried out social evaluations in 1,294 homes to understand the needs of the affected families. The official specified that, in addition to the shelter located at Ifarhu, others were enabled in: El Bajito de San Miguel, Natá and Olá. These spaces are currently housing children, the elderly, pregnant women, and families who had to leave their homes. In Natá, for example, a group of residents was evacuated from an apartment building and taken to an area near the municipal gymnasium.
Affected Schools and Students Who Also Need Help.
At the Federico Zúñiga Feliú Educational Center in Penonomé, a beam located above the columns of the main entrance fractured during the earthquake and ended up collapsing, but the school building is still standing. Security personnel and school staff were outside the two-story building yesterday and did not allow me to approach. Therefore, Professor Leida Mercado de Guardia, the school’s director, met with me outside. Recalling the day of the earthquake, Mercado recounted that a group of teachers and students had to be taken to the Aquilino Tejeira Hospital for medical attention.
This school has already been visited by staff from the Department of Engineering and Architecture of the Ministry of Education and, according to the principal, the infrastructure received a yellow rating, which means that “precautions need to be maintained”. However, the consequences for the school community extend beyond structural damage. The Federico Zúñiga Feliú school serves 2,246 students in morning and afternoon sessions, all of whom are unable to attend classes today.
Furthermore, its school’s counseling team has identified approximately 100 affected families, both those suffering damage to their homes and those experiencing emotional trauma from the earthquake. The principal stated that while classes could resume at some point in the coming weeks, she acknowledges that the psychological consequences of this event on her students could disrupt the school year.
The post The Other Wounds of the Earthquake in Coclé. Without Classrooms or Far from Home. appeared first on Newsroom Panama.