What turned Mitch from a natural hazard into a human disaster was a chain reaction of social vulnerabilities created by long-term climate change, environmental degradation, poverty, social inequality, population pressure, rapid urbanisation and international debt.
Poverty is the most persistent cause and the most pernicious effect of human disaster.
It raised crime rates, pushed up domestic violence and drove up to a million people from their homes, because their farms or their jobs could no longer sustain them. Thousands of others were forced to return to environmentally unstable homes and fields because they were too poor to buy their way out. Christian Aid went back to speak with some of Mitch's victims, one year on, to understand the hurricane's legacy more clearly. Hurricane Mitch had two unexpected consequences say Honduran civil society organisations. It sparked an intense national debate on the need to rebuild the country's democratic institutions as well as its bridges.