EL SALVADOR, 12 November – MapAction’s tenth field mission of 2009 has started in El Salvador, in response to flooding and landslides there. (Picture: Reuters/Luis Galdamez, courtesy www.alertnet.org)

The deployment is in response to a request for mapping and information management support for a UN OCHA disaster assessment and coordination mission. Severe seasonal rains and the passage of Hurricane Ida across central America caused flash floods and mudslides across a large area of El Salvador. There have been scores of deaths and thousands made homeless.

As a MapAction team flew out to emergency, the charity noted the deployment as its tenth field mission so far in 2009. The mission tally has included five flooding emergencies across Africa and Asia, the Sumatra earthquake, and humanitarian crises in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Teams have also undertaken disaster risk reduction projects in Papua New Guinea and Kenya, and a further project is scheduled in Niger in December.

The charity’s chief executive Nigel Woof said: “We’ve never been this busy. Our field mapping service has been in demand time and again this year. It continues to be a real stretch but our volunteers are just fantastic.”