How did societal beliefs contribute to the disaster of Hurricane Mitch?
One way that societal beliefs contributed to the intensity of the Hurricane Mitch disaster was through the popular belief of Americans in the mid to late 1900s that communism must be elliminated and replaced by a free market economy. This led the American government to intervene, although somewhat indirectly, in the governing of many Central American countries, by supporting regimes that allowed for big industry. Without this intervention by the Americans, these countries may have maintained their socialist governments and many farmers would not have been forced off their lands into the more marginal, steep slopes (Cockburn et al, 1999). These steep, deforested areas (cleared for subsistance agriculture) were the regions where the majority of lives were lost in flooding and mudslides.
