UN chief voices concern over floods impact in El Salvador

UN Secretary-general Ban Ki- moon on Thursday voiced his deep concern over the large number of people affected by recent floods in El Salvador, and urged the international community to offer help to the Central American country. The secretary-general expressed his concern as he met with Vanda Pignato, El Salvador's First Lady and secretary for social inclusion, at the UN Headquarters in New York, said Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky. During the meeting, Pignato briefed Ban on the loss of life in the wake of the recent devastating tropical rains. The secretary-general expressed concern that 300,000 people had been directly affected by the storms in El Salvador and more than one million indirectly affected, that the country's agricultural crops and infrastructure had been seriously damaged, and that reconstruction efforts would require 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, an amount equivalent to five percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), said the spokesman. About 56,000 people in El Salvador have been displaced and evacuated to shelters, with 35 people reported dead and about 69 percent of the country affected, said a report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Apart from El Salvador, the recent tropical rains also continued to cause severe flooding across Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Belize. Ban commended El Salvador's disaster management efforts and called upon the international community to respond strongly to the UN flash appeal issued two days earlier, asking for emergency and reconstruction assistance to the country, the spokesman added. The appeal, called El Salvador Flash Appeal 2011, aims to mobilize international support for humanitarian aid to help flood- stricken people in the country during the next six months.