Panabaj, located on the edge of

Lake Atitlán Lake Atitlán ( es, links=no, Lago de Atitlán, ) is a lake in the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, Sierra Madre mountain range. The lake is located in the Sololá Department of southwestern Guatemala. It is known as the deepe ...

in the western

highlands Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau. Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to: Places Albania * Dukagjin Highlands Armenia * Armenian Highlands Australia *Sou ...

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

, is a small village (canton or aldea) within the municipality of

Santiago Atitlán Santiago Atitlán (, from Nahuatl ''atitlan'', "at the water", in Tz'utujil ''Tz'ikin Jaay'', "birdhouse") is a municipality in the Sololá department of Guatemala. The town is situated on Lake Atitlán, which has an elevation of . The town si ...

, bordering the city of Santiago Atitlán proper, in the department of

Sololá __NOTOC__ Sololá is a city in Guatemala. It is the capital of the department of Sololá and the administrative seat of Sololá municipality. It is located close to Lake Atitlan. The name is a Hispanicized form of its pre-Columbian name, one spel ...

. Prior to the disaster of

Hurricane Stan Hurricane Stan was a relatively weak but deadly tropical cyclone that affected areas of Central America and Mexico in early October 2005. The eighteenth named storm and eleventh hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Stan formed from ...

in which over 400 persons from Panabaj and nearby Tzanchaj were killed or left missing, the town's population had numbered over 3,000, though a census has not been taken since. Most of the residents are Tz'utujil

Maya people The Maya peoples () are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical reg ...

, one of the 21 Maya ethnic groups who live in Guatemala, often noted for their steadfastness in maintaining their clothing styles (especially the women's clothing) and traditional cultural and religious practices. Evangelical Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are also practiced among a large percentage of them.

Political conflict

Like many indigenous populations around the lake, many residents of Panabaj suffered during the 36-year-long on-again off-again

Guatemalan Civil War The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population ...

that ended in 1996. Often spurred and taught by revolutionary political groups from abroad, many considered it to be merely a continuation of the age-old conflict between the Spaniards and the indigenous peoples of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

. In 1990, 13 unarmed civilians were gunned down while protesting and throwing rocks into an army base located in Panabaj. International media attention forced the Guatemalan government to close the base and declare Santiago Atitlán and its environs, which include Panabaj and the bordering town of Tzanchaj, a "military-free zone."

Landslide

During the early-morning hours of October 5, 2005, the town was flooded in a

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated grade (slope), slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of ...

triggered by torrential rains associated with Hurricane Stan. Mud poured off the saturated slopes of the

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

that loomed over the village, burying people and buildings. According to one report, the flow was "four kilometers long and up to 12 meters deep in places " while another said it was a "half-mile wide mudflow as much as 15 to 20 feet thick ." Streets were inundated with mud, keeping rescue workers from reaching the area for two days. Rescue work was discontinued later in the week. From Panabaj and Tzanchaj, rescuers recovered 160 bodies, while 250 remained missing from both towns. Overall, more than a thousand people were killed. Relief provision was hampered by a large number of major natural disasters in 2005, in particular by diversion of resources to deal with a severe

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

that occurred just a few days after the mudslide .

Reconstruction

After the disaster, the mayor of Santiago Atitlán requested that Panabaj be declared a cemetery, not to be reinhabited; however, most of the townspeople returned, and the majority of the houses and stores were rebuilt for occupation by their original residents. Many of the residents subsequently relocated to settlements east of Santiago along the shore, named Chuk Muk I, II, and III. Crops were replanted in the region on the shoreward side of the main road, which now, due to the earth deposits from the mudslide, extends farther out into the southern watershed of Lake Atitlán on the east side of the inlet, and the town is once again thriving much as it did before the catastrophe. In addition to the crops planted on the massive now-solidified mud deposit, the highly fertile volcanic soil—as is the soil in most parts of Guatemala—has since sprouted grass, weeds and verdure, leaving little visual evidence that a mudslide took place, other than the occasional deep gulleys that were gouged out by rain water within weeks of the deluge when the mud was still soft, leaving the appearance now of thousands of years of erosion. The trees that were already there are still standing, though the ground level at their bases is now higher. Many of the townspeople, with their skilled weaving and art, are benefiting financially from tourism, mainly from the U.S., Canada and European countries. Some of this work is included in the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

-sponsored book, ‘'Arte Naif: Contemporary Guatemalan Mayan Painting, 1998.'‘ Many others continue to subsist with farming according to the traditional methods and net-fishing in their traditional homemade wooden boats.

External links

Tropical Storm Stan - Central America and Southern Mexico. Sources: BBC News, Reuters, Associated Press"The night the mud drowned whole villages"
by Mary Ann Sieghart, Times Online, December 15, 2005 {{coord missing, Guatemala Populated places in Guatemala Natural disasters in Guatemala 2005 natural disasters