In March 1812 Simón Bolívar, the future liberator of South America, stood in the rubble of his hometown, Caracas. The Venezuelan capital had been levelled by an enormous earthquake and aftershock and as he led the rescue efforts, Bolívar announced: “If nature itself decides to oppose us, we will fight and force her to obey!” Two hundred years later, Latin American governments are still struggling to predict, mitigate and respond to natural disasters.
Introduction
In the last two years alone, the region has seen massive earthquakes in Ecuador and Mexico, fatal mudslides in Colombia, one of the most destructive tropical storms on record in Hurricane Maria, and the destruction of whole Guatemalan villages with the eruption of the Fuego Volcano. Data suggests that natural disasters are, indeed, becoming increasingly common. Latin America’s geography and geology make it prone to a wide array of threats which have their origins both in the ground beneath and the sky above.