No one lives in the Casita hamlets any more. El Porvenir, Versalles, Rolando Rodriguez and Santa Narcisa are buried under six metres of mud. The villages have disappeared beneath a tongue of muck and gritstone. These blue tarpaulin shelters have been donated by Italy and they are a godsend to the homeless, who complain long and bitterly that foreign aid is not otherwise getting through to them. They are low on rice, flour, kerosene, baby formula.
Fresh water is at a premium and is pumped out of what looks like a gigantic water mattress.
Pantaleon Gonzales is one of the fewer than 200 Casita hillside dwellers who survived the mudslide. It was raining very hard, the wind was blowing. I had this feeling that something terrible would happen, I could feel it in my bones. I was worried that the whole mountain would come down. His neighbours mocked him as he prepared to flee with eight members of his family.