On December 15, 1999, mudflows caused by days of heavy rain buried many northern coastal cities in Venezuela, South America. It is estimated that more than fifty thousand people died and five hundred thousand people became homeless. The disaster was the most severe to take place in Venezuela in almost a hundred years. A fact-finding team of five US Tzu Chi members traveled to the worst-hit state of Las Vegas for four days and distributed medicines and vitamins. Currently, evaluation is underway to provide the disaster areas with water purification equipment, large tents and heavy machinery.

At home in Arlington, Texas, on the last night of the millennium, the children invited my wife and me to go with them to watch the fireworks in the city. We declined since the next day we were leaving for Venezuela to investigate disaster conditions there. The children still went happily, but we could tell they were somewhat disappointed.

Putting away thoughts on how the world was celebrating tonight, my wife and I busily prepared meals for our trip. We didn't notice the new millennium arrive as the centuries changed hands at midnight.

Venezuela, situated at the northeastern corner of South America, faces the Caribbean Sea to the north and borders Brazil on the south, Guyana on the east and Colombia on the west. It is a rich country, with oil as its main export. Of the nation's population of twenty-four million people, ninety-six percent are Catholics. The land slopes in altitude from the south to north, and the mountains are steep.

December in Venezuela is normally the dry season, but last year, completely out of the ordinary, it started raining in late November and continued right through to December. By December 10, sharply rising floodwaters began causing landslides, and the local government warned residents to evacuate. The warnings went unheeded because the last major natural disaster occurred some fifty years ago.

The rain continued and finally, at around ten in the evening of December 15, brought about the biggest natural disaster ever to hit the country. Large trees, rocks and mud sped down with the mountain floods from higher grounds to residential areas in the middle and at the bottom of the mountains. The mudflows wreaked havoc in their path and caused countless casualties; some reports said the number of deaths was thirty thousand, some said fifty thousand or more. The death toll may never be known.

It was early in the morning of January 2 when we arrived in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. The lights at the airport were dim and most of its operations had been halted. Ke Chi-sheng, representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Venezuela, greeted us at the airport. He told us that close to a third of the airport staff had died in the mudflows, resulting in understaffing and delayed flights.

Mario Alfiledo Lata, governor of the state of Las Vegas, met us at the airport. After claiming our luggage, we set off straight to the disaster areas. The streets were nothing but mud and traffic came to a standstill. Soldiers carrying guns could be seen everywhere because the government had declared martial law. We heard that some people had been shot for looting amidst the chaos. This added a grim atmosphere to the already saddening conditions.

Roads and bridges had been torn apart. What had been a four-lane street was covered with mud and rocks piled up to five meters (16.5 ft) high. With insufficient heavy machinery, it was difficult to clear the roads and traffic had been partially restored on only one lane. We were able to make it to the disaster area because we were traveling with the governor and a police motorcade.

The first disaster area we reached was Maiquetia, where some houses were completely destroyed and some half-buried in the mud. On some roads, only one side was passable as the other side was covered with mud heaped more than one meter (3.3 ft) high.

We stayed for an hour, then drove east to the hardest-hit area, the town of La Guaira. As we entered the disaster area from the highway, we found houses that were tilted, half-buried in mud or completely wiped out. Boulders weighing more than a thousand pounds and large trees at least thirty inches in diameter blocked the roads. It was a terrible sight. We could imagine the horrific destructive power of the floodwaters when they gushed down the mountains.

We walked into an old alley lined on both sides by houses whose windows were broken and which were filled with yellow mud. As we walked past a European-style house, we could still see the furniture that had been soaked in water. We were told that many people were buried here, and we could detect the odor of decomposing bodies.

After a ten-minute walk, we came to a school that was almost completely buried under the mud. All that was left of it was a one-meter-high wall. Outside a church not far from the school, the governor was surrounded by a group of residents. They complained of the lack of water and electricity and hoped the governor could solve the problem as soon as possible.

A half-hour drive brought us to another disaster area, Macuto. Along the way, we noticed many people walking on the road. Upon inquiry, we learned that they were the lucky survivors who had fled their homes before the mudflow came. Because the roads were damaged and public transportation had ceased, they could only travel by foot to see what had become of their homes.

The governor stopped the car by a hospital for women and children. We crawled through a broken window and entered the building. It was dark inside, and we could only barely make out the interior by the sunlight that shone through the broken windows. There were hospital beds, office furniture, medical equipment, stethoscopes, and a wall pasted with cartoon characters.

The governor wanted to take us around the ward, but gave up because the mud was too deep to walk in. We tried to go down a staircase, but the exit was stopped up with rocks and tree trunks and we could smell the odor of corpses.

The governor told us that this hospital had four floors. The window through which we had just entered was on the fourth floor--the lower three floors were all buried in rocks and mud. When we thought of the expectant mothers and the newborn babies who did not escape the calamity, we were too upset to utter a single word.

We continued driving eastward along the coast. The roads were strewn with rocks and the highways had been devastated by floodwaters and landslides. Thanks to the governor's four-wheel drive car, we were saved from being totally bogged down.

When we entered Carabalieda, we noticed in front of an apartment a "car wall"--at least six cars had been washed down by the floods and had crashed into the apartment, completely flattening them.

This area was once a high-end residential district, but now the houses in the path of the mudflow were either half-buried in the mud or completely destroyed. Property damage went beyond hundreds of millions of dollars. Less than fifteen meters (50 ft) away on a neighboring street, high-rise buildings still stood tall. The two areas made a sharp contrast.

The morning of January 3, we went to the Federacion Camdesina shelter, temporarily set up in what was originally a government office, where 496 refugees were staying. They slept on the floor and ate meals, of which corn was the staple food, provided by the government. We handed out medicine and lollipops prepared by the Tzu Chi US Free Clinic Center, which seemed to cheer the people up a little.

When we were leaving the shelter, an old man ran out and said to us, "I have nothing, so I offer you this song to express my gratitude," and sing away he did…

During our brief two-day trip, there was sorrow over the misfortune of the injured and deceased, and there was joy as we talked to local Chinese about Tzu Chi and great love.

Mario Alfiledo Lata, in his early thirties, had not been governor of Las Vegas for long when disaster struck. He had had many plans for reshaping the state, but he had never anticipated the disaster of the century, which had rather dispirited him. However, after spending two days with him, we could tell that he was not giving up his ideals.

After visiting the disaster areas, we now know that most urgently needed are water purification equipment, water tanks, heavy machinery, five thousand tents each of which can contain 150 people, and technicians for coastline and river engineering. In the long run, houses, schools and hospitals all need repair or reconstruction.

What we saw in Venezuela reminded us of the impermanence of life and the fragility of the world we reside in. It will take ten years at least for the state of Las Vegas to return to normal. After this initial investigation, we all realized that the hard relief work has only just begun.