Panama Accelerates Construction One Month After Earthquake.

As this Monday marks one month since the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that shook central Panama, leaving three dead and nearly 30 injured, some 2,700 people remain housed in a hundred shelters, while the government advances the construction of 300 homes.

“It has been a month of hard work,” said the Secretary of Goals and Minister for Canal Affairs, José Ramón Icaza, at a press conference, taking stock of the “rapid humanitarian assistance” provided by the Government of José Raúl Mulino to the affected people and areas.

“Today we can talk about homes being built, families beginning to return to their homes, students continuing their classes, roads being opened, and communities restarting their activities,” Icaza said.

The earthquake of October 9, which has been followed by more than 1,400 aftershocks, mainly devastated rural areas of the central Pacific coast, while in Panama City, full of skyscrapers facing the bay, it only caused panic and little material damage.

Since then, 70 roads affected by the earthquake have been reopened, while businesses are beginning to recover as the Ministry of Culture monitors 54 heritage sites, of which 39 are working on shoring up and securing their structures, while humanitarian aid continues.

The government declared a state of emergency following the earthquake and allocated $100 million to address it, an amount that “will be reviewed,” Icaza stated.

“Repair every house that was affected by the earthquake, rebuild the schools that were affected, repair the educational centers, the health centers, the hospitals, the rural aqueducts, the cultural sites, the roads, in short, whatever is necessary to recover from this disaster,” the Secretary of Goals emphasized.

Thus Icaza said that with the Ministry of Housing and Territorial Planning (Miviot) there are “more than 300 homes under construction” and this week, he indicated, they will begin “new work in other communities”.

The head of Miviot, Jaime Jované, warned that in vulnerable areas near the Azuero-Soná Fault, the construction or reconstruction of homes will not be authorized.

“We definitely cannot rebuild or authorize the reconstruction of housing on a fault line, in vulnerable areas, whether due to landslides or soil erosion; that cannot be allowed,” Jované stated, adding that they have “16 registered cases under these conditions” so far.The Minister of Housing said they are looking for land in the community to relocate those affected to a safe place, and even cited a case where the fault line split the house in two: “It definitely cannot be built there.”