Startled by the rumbling, Salas looked up to see boulders, rocks and trees roaring toward his house at incredible speed. Instinctively, he dove into a large cement drainage pipe. It was two days before rescuers could dig him out. Paulo Mendoza, another father with two children, was luckier, but he still can't tell his story without tears. Tearing into the town that was nestled between a steep mountain range and the blue Caribbean, the flood quickly washed away Mendoza's home and 500 other flimsy houses of the poor.
Relatives hold photos, hoping other survivors have seen their missing loved ones.
With hardly any food or clean water, the refugees huddled together for three nights until a U.S. helicopter evacuated them. As the Skyhook chopper lifted, they took a last look at their town. It was gone. The mountainside was shaved bare as if by a cleaver-wielding monster. Salas and the Mendoza family are among the 150,000 homeless Venezuelans whom 13 Maryknoll missioners have been helping to recover from one of Latin America's worst natural disasters.