It is a scene of surreal devastation. Everything in town is down-not a single structure survives intact. Some are half-standing, waiting for the slightest breeze to finish their collapse. Some are hollowed out with no roof. But most are mere piles of rubble.
People sit in the streets or cluster under makeshift tents, plastic sheeting over sticks.
But they have been able to evacuate their most badly wounded, and the people there suggest we head on to Santa Maria, where they have not been so lucky. Santa Maria straddles a ridgetop high in the mountains overlooking the sublimely lovely Lago de Ilopango, along the slope of a large volcano. Its simple houses and shops of adobe and tile line the single street that passes through. On another day it must have been a beautiful place. But not today.