Update (Nov. 14): Distributions are underway in Honduras! Samaritan’s Purse is providing household water filters, emergency shelter material, and hygiene kits to area pastors to aid hurting families in their respective communities.
The Emergency Field Hospital is still being set up and should be operational soon.
Please pray as Tropical Storm Iota is predicted to become a major hurricane next week, striking the same parts of Honduras and Nicaragua that endured Hurricane Eta.
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On Nov. 11, Samaritan’s Purse airlifted an Emergency Field Hospital to Honduras in the wake of severe flooding and landslides caused by Hurricane Eta. We are responding with medical help as the powerful storm destroyed or damaged area healthcare facilities. Our 25-person disaster assistance response team (DART) was also aboard the DC-8, as well as various relief supplies to be distributed in partnership with local churches.
The storm hit a heavily populated area in the country’s north. Through our Emergency Field Hospital, the medical DART will provide critical care to suffering people, with the capacity to treat some 100 patients a day.
In addition to our medical response, emergency shelter material and hygiene kits will be provided to affected families. We also plan to install four community water filtration systems, each serving as many as 25,000 people per day.
“In this year filled with hardship and uncertainties, Honduran families are once again facing incredible devastation,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse. “Please pray for these suffering communities as our teams provide immediate aid and point families to the hope found in Jesus Christ.”
Hurricane Eta made landfall along the coast of Nicaragua as a Category 4 storm on Nov. 3. Then, several days of torrential rain caused severe mudslides and flooding in that nation as well as in Honduras and Guatemala, killing dozens of people. Inland areas received an influx of as much as 15-35 inches of rainfall this past week. Thousands of residents have had to evacuate their homes.
Hurricane Eta is the Atlantic’s 12th hurricane of 2020. It had tied a record from 2005—the year Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast—for the most named storms in a single hurricane season. The subsequent formation of subtropical storm Theta in the Atlantic Ocean has now surpassed that record at 29 named storms this season.
After hitting Central America, Eta also made landfall in South Florida and continues to linger in the Gulf of Mexico. It is currently a Category 1 hurricane and may hit Florida again later this week. Samaritan’s Purse U.S. disaster relief teams currently are active in four locations in Louisiana and in Baldwin County, Alabama, following Hurricanes Laura, Sally, and Delta.
In 1998, flooding from Hurricane Mitch killed more than 10,000 people in Honduras and Nicaragua. In the four years following the storm, Samaritan’s Purse rebuilt over 5,000 concrete-block houses in Honduras. In addition, our World Medical Mission volunteers cared for villagers through medical brigades that treated more than 1,000 patients a month. Through these efforts, over 5,000 individuals prayed to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
Since that time, Samaritan’s Purse has shared the Gospel with and distributed shoebox gifts to more than 3 million children in Honduras through our Operation Christmas Child partners there. More than 1 million children in the country have participated in our follow-up discipleship program for shoebox recipients called The Greatest Journey since it was implemented globally a decade ago and over 559,000 of these boys and girls have made decisions for Christ through the program.
Join us in praying for our disaster response team and local church partners as they help people in need and share the hope of the Gospel. Pray for their safety as they navigate areas where there have been mudslides due to continued rain. Lift up those who have suffered losses from the storm and pray that they will depend on the Lord for comfort and strength.
Your gift will enable Samaritan's Purse to provide desperately-needed physical and spiritual relief to families in hard-hit areas devastated by Hurricane Eta and Hurricane Iota.