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Grief overshadows arrival

of 2000 in flood-hit Venezuela

CARACAS: Grief and despair on Saturday overshadowed the arrival of 2000 for those who lost their homes and often their loved ones in Venezuela's killer floods, and who began the new year wondering how they would start over.

In the devastated hillside slums in the coastal towns razed to the ground and in impoverished Caracas neighbourhoods swept away by the floods the same words echoed over and over again: "What is there to celebrate?"

"Nothing to celebrate, nothing is left, so many sacrifices by our parents, gone, destroyed," said Williams Gomez, 36.

Since the floods swept away his home the central Caracas slum of San Bernardino, Gomez has been living in a temporary shelter. But he and a few neighbours returned to the site where their houses once stood to see in the new year together. Some cried, others hugged and a few just sat there. "It's not a celebration, we just want to be together," said Gomez.

And, despite efforts by volunteers to cheer up those who lost so much, the mood was grim in the temporary shelters housing many of the 140,000 people left homeless by the floods.

"One just cannot forget seeing so many people die, watching children be swept away without being able to help," said Miguel Bamberg, wondering where he will live, how he will survive now that he lost the little he had.

"So much sadness, so many dead, so much destruction," said Maria Helena de Cardona, one of 3,200 people housed at the Poliedro sports center in Caracas after losing all they had to the floods.-AFP