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At the request of Puerto Rican Governor Rafael Hernandez Colon, a Ponce native, President Reagan declared Ponce, Coamo, Santa Isabel and the Atlantic Coast town of Toa Baja disaster zones, making the U.S. commonwealth island eligible for federal relief funds. Hernandez Colon also joined some 3,000 mourners at Ponce's sports coliseum in a memorial service for 23 of the dead. The Governor has vowed to continue the search for victims "as long as humanly possible," while plans are under discussion to turn the Mameyes ravine into a memorial park. For many residents of the devastated barrio, the site is likely to remain the mass grave that nature fashioned with such awful force.
FOOTNOTE: *The worst previous case: about 200 lives lost in flooding and landslides in the Los Angeles area on March 2, 1938.