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Evangelical missions and relief agencies, already stretched by a string of natural catastrophes, are responding to two major earthquakes in as many weeks that have devastated parts of El Salvador and India.

On January 13, as many as 1,200 people died as a jolt measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale hit the tiny Central American republic. More than 4,000 were injured and tens of thousands are now homeless after the quake that caused more than $1 billion in damage-about half of the nation’s budget. Many died when the tremor launched a landslide on a deforested hill, which buried the Las Colinas neighborhood west of the capital San Salvador in Santa Tecla. World Relief Nicaragua director Kevin Sanderson said that Las Colinas is heavily evangelical- perhaps 35 percent-and that many church buildings were damaged or destroyed. Some villages lost more than 80 percent of its housing, and a few lost all housing. In 1986 El Salvador suffered a 7.5 quake that killed 1,500 people, injured 20,000 and left 300,000 homeless. In the wake of the devastation, one woman told the Associated Press, “All we have is God and the helicopter that brings food.”

On January 26, a 7.9 magnitude quake destroyed two Indian cities, Bhuj and Anjar, in Gujarat state, and damaged Ahmadabad, Gujarat’s Chicago-sized capital. In the days following the disaster, estimates of the dead ranged from 15,000 to 100,000. A Save the Children worker helping with the relief effort described India’s quake as “one of the severest earthquakes in history. It is absolutely devastating, as if villages had been hit by an atomic bomb.” Relief officials have described it as India’s most devastating earthquake in 50 years. Some victims made homeless died in the days following the quake when plastic sheets used as temporary shelter failed to protect them from sub-freezing night temperatures.

Relief efforts are helping victims of both tragedies by supplying clean water, food, mattresses, sheets, clothing, medical supplies and personnel, and plastic sheeting for temporary shelter. Phase 2 relief will include rebuilding homes and other structures. Agencies need donations from anybody willing to give. “Certainly there’s a lot of needs in El Salvador and in other areas,” Sanderson said. “We’re certainly looking for other resources to meet these needs. If God’s calling somebody to help us, please do.”

Christians find hope amid despair in Romans 8:28, which promises that God can work blessings from tragedy. “Disasters of this magnitude may be God’s megaphone, on the one hand,” says Roger E. Hedlund, a missionary to India. “On the other, they are opportunities for His people to be a compassionate presence for the victims.”

March 2, 2001