Floods Nicaragua

The International Red Cross on Monday said that it would need about $7.4 million to help victims of massive flooding and mudslides across Central America. Honduras and Nicaragua were particularly hard hit, with thousands of people feared dead and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. In Washington, President Clinton said the U.S. would provide $2 million in food, medicine, water and other emergency supplies.

This does not look like a town where disaster has struck. On Sunday, children ran errands, men chopped wood and women washed clothes with a clear view of the mudslide that rolled down the Casitas Volcano on Oct. 30, killing more than 1,000 people and depositing bodies along the way, including scores left in sugar cane fields a few miles from town. Most local residents lost many friends and relatives.

Torrential rains that have pelted Central America for two weeks threatened Honduras' major dam Saturday, forcing the evacuation of more than 100,000 people downstream. The entire region has suffered from massive flooding that has killed 13 people and destroyed millions of dollars' worth of crops and buildings, many in areas devastated by Tropical Storm Mitch less than a year ago.