(2 of 2)
From neighboring Belize (formerly British Honduras), Britain sent in 57 infantrymen with assault craft powered by outboard motors; they rushed food and water to stranded villagers. A Cuban medical brigade of 41, including 21 doctors, treated 900 Hondurans in two days. The U.S., Nicaragua, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, West Germany and even neighboring El Salvador—which has been at odds with Honduras since the two countries clashed in the so-called "soccer war" ignited in 1969 by rioting World Cup fans —pitched in with food and medicine.
Hurricane Fifi's attack on the fragile economy of Honduras—with a population of 2.8 million, it is the poorest of the Central American republics—was calamitous. Average annual income is poverty-line $260 per capita, and Foreign Minister César A. Batres put the cost of the damage at $1 billion, considerably in excess of Honduras' gross national product of $890 million this year. Some experts estimated that almost 50% of this year's food crop was destroyed, raising an immediate specter of starvation for homeless campesinos with no source of income or produce to barter. "People are starving, their supplies were washed away, and there are no stores near their villages," said Honduran Relief Coordinator Lieut. Colonel Eduardo Andino. "They have no way to get food except from us." A natural disaster had become a national disaster.