Conservationists point out that the region will face similar punishment by future hurricanes unless countries correct serious errors of past decades and confront problems posed by a growing population.
Trees can prevent flooding, because they sponge up rainfall.
The same report notes that two-thirds of the mountainous isthmus is sloped. Hurricane Mitch's torrents fell on these steep hills, most of them denuded, causing massive mudslides that buried thousands of people, homes, animals, and farms. When the volcanic cone filled with water, it collapsed, sending a tsunami of mud, rocks, and debris downhill. The slide killed an estimated 2,000 people and obliterated 10 small communities that should never have been permitted to be in harm's way, he says. In order to build homes and plant crops, residents cleared trees - which likely would have helped block the deadly onslaught of mud and debris.