Several people had themselves been trapped, and sit stunned and silent amongst the rubble. A teenager visiting from San Salvador, all the skin scraped off his back, after narrowly escaping a falling roof beam, thanks God for his good fortune. As we work hurriedly, racing the sinking sun, a powerful aftershock rips through the village. People stand still, faces ashen, too scared to run. More buildings are felled, the final blow for what had been left standing.
Word comes that a large house on the edge of town has collapsed, blocking the road out of town.
Now in the near dark, we rush to the site and begin digging. For half an hour, the only sound is the scraping of bare hands along the ground and the clinking of broken tiles thrown to the side. We work in unison, strangers united by a common cause. The road cleared, we return to San Salvador. All the way back the van is quiet, save the scratchy songs that occasionally make their way across the radio.