Funes reports on damage totals from Deluge of 2011

The office of El Salvador's president Mauricio Funes released estimated damage figures from the recent rains as described in a report in El Faro.  The cumulative damage estimates include:

• $840 million in total losses
• Affecting one out of every 20 Salvadorans
• Most affected sector was agriculture with losses of $300 million
• $261 million in infrastructure damages
• $208 million in damage to houses, schools, and health centers
• Economic growth for 2011 will only be 1.4% rather than 2.1% (already the lowest in Latin America).

These reports do not include the losses of individual households which had their possessions destroyed or have been unable to work.

The president's office reported that its internal polling shows that 84% of Salvadorans approve of the way the government had handled the crisis.   Funes also took credit for reducing the overall level of loss of life by strengthening the government's ability to respond, including strengthening the Civil Protection ministry which had only 30 employees when Funes took office in 2009.