The earth has been shaking lately here in Guatemala. Today was especially "shaky" as we had four decent sized earthquakes. The biggest ones measured 4.8 and 5.8. The epicenter was some 60 kms east of us in the same area that I wrote about a few weeks ago where the earth has been shaking constantly for the past months and years. Reports are that one woman died when her poorly built house collapsed on her. 2 motorists died in a landslide triggered by the earthquakes and the rain. We are getting towards the latter end of the rainy season which means a lot more landslides. The reason why we see more landslides now is that....1. the ground has become saturated with water and 2. the rains are more steady and constant. Instead of pouring for a half and hour it will now rain steadily for several hours which causes the ground to become more saturated. When it pours the water does not have time to seep into the ground so the majority runs off. However, when it drizzles it seeps more into the ground causing the soil to become heavy and therefore cause more landslides. Thankfully, we have never been directly affected by landslides. Lia and I were commenting on that this past weekend as we went to Cubulco and then back again. We saw little landslides all over the place or big rocks in the middle of the road. We have never had a slide come down on us or right in front of us. We have been spared so far and we are grateful to our Creator for that. Please pray for us as we have to travel the roads which at times are treacherous that God will keep us safe as He has done so far.
The following video clip will give you some idea as to what part of the road is like to Cubulco. This was taken several weeks ago, but since that time there are a lot more landslides and parts of the road missing.