Dr. Annie Gray

We were very emotional because we were actually very thankful that we got a lot of help from the government, but also international help.

And all the children could have some toys for Christmas.

And we also had some food.

And

Figures for how many people lost their lives in the floods and mudslides vary.

Whilst the government at the time maintained it was 3,000, other estimates put it between 10,000 and 30,000.

Many bodies were buried under mud, rocks or trees.

Tens of thousands more people were made homeless.

We had to live with the feeling that many of our neighbors had probably been swept away by the flood.

How many kids were lost?

How many families were separated?

I was lucky because none of my family was dead, but a lot of my neighbors were.

We just lost material things.

They spend four months in refuge centres and in April 2000 end up in the capital, Caracas.

The Poliedro of Caracas is a big place where they have concerts and that's where they were set up.

I didn't feel very safe there.

And the same day that we arrived there, they threw out a guy that was raping women.

There were thousands of people and there were a lot of people from all the villages around and most of them I didn't know.

I told my children that we were going to stay only one night and the next day we were going to go back to La Guaira because I was actually more afraid to stay there.

I never let go of their hands.