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Remember the sinkhole? Guatemala still reeling from Agatha, here's how to help

Xeni Jardin at 1:15 pm Tue, Jun 15, 2010

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The photograph above went viral a few weeks ago, when massive storms and volcanic eruptions caused displacement, injury, and death throughout Guatemala. The sinkhole snapshot is long gone from the top of trending Google link lists, but people are still suffering throughout the country—the worst off, as usual, are marginalized indigenous communities who make up the poorest sector of the population.

As dramatic as this photo was, the sinkhole is the least of Guatemala's worries. How you can help...

201005_gua_searching4bodies-1.jpg

(PHOTO: Mercado Global, via AIDG - Searching for survivors in a mudslide)

Renata Avila (disclaimer: a colleague of mine in a not-for-profit org that serves this region) writes,

The Rigoberta Menchu Foundation has a digital center based on one of the most affected areas, San Lucas Toliman, so it is a good channel to help people. General Info in English here. Also, I've created this repository of aid links and disaster info, mostly in Spanish, and I will try to keep it updated.
Catherine Lainé of AIDG points us to this emergency appeal update from AIDG, who do good work in the area:
AIDG sent a team down last week to work with the Lake Atitlan based organization Mercado Global to assess damage and coordinate repairs on water systems for communities. Water is a critical need as pipes have been washed away and local water systems have been damaged.
Read more here. Link includes a donation button.

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Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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  • dainel

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286026/Driver-lucky-escape-sinkhole-swallows-car-busy-China-motorway.html

    Look at the last pic in the article. Appears to be the same sinkhole from another angle. Doesn’t look so deep there.

    • soongtype

      Doesn’t look so deep?! Are you kidding? It swallowed an entire building!

  • Anonymous

    It turns out that the sinkhole is on a sewer line. A few months earlier another giant sinkhole appeared long the same sewer line just 15 blocks from the current sink hole. You can read about it here:

    http://luisfi61.blogspot.com/2010/05/de-quien-es-el-hoyo-el-de-la-ciudad.html

    or in translation

    http://translate.google.ca/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://luisfi61.blogspot.com/2010/05/de-quien-es-el-hoyo-el-de-la-ciudad.html&sl=es&tl=en