1.
SV Lorry passes wreckage along road
0.05

2.
SV Relief workers (2 shots)
0.11

3.
SV Fire engine along road
0.18

4.
SV Soft drinks building burning (3 shots)
0.30

5.
SV People carrying creates of soft drink
0.46

6.
GV PAN Tents and medical centre (2 shots)
0.58

7.
SV Injured being treated
1.02

8.
SV Equipment being unloaded from truck
1.09

9.
SV Troops unloading supplies from truck
1.14

10.
SV General Somoza speaks to refugees
1.23

11.
CU General Somoza speaking over shots people sleeping
1.50

12.
SV Truck carrying belongings along road
1.55

13.
GV Traffic in squire
2.00

14.
GV Children seated in roadway eating
2.06

15.
GV Refugees by road-side
2.13


SOMOZA: "Approximately eighty per cent of all the buildings .... public and private.... have been badly damaged. They have to be surveyed to see if they are safe to inhabit within the next few weeks."



INTERVIEWER: "So the capital as you now know it, will cease to exist?"



SOMOZA: "That is right. We are going to live tents until we make an appreciation os the situation and decide .... the Government will have to decide what we're going to do."




Initials ??? ESP/2351



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Appeals have gone out over the plight of about 24,000 of Managua's residents left homeless by the earthquake which devastated most of the Nicaraguan capital on Saturday (23 December).

Most of those still in the city are living in the open, with only tents to provide them with shelter. Firms still rang in the debris that has become the burial ground for untold thousands of the city's population.

Food and water shortages, the fear of epidemics and the prevalence of looting pose the biggest problems for officials.

Supermarkets have been sacked as groups of starving people attempt to get food and other necessities. One blazing soft drink firm was raided by looters seeking something to drink. Drinking water is almost non-existent.

Shortage of transport has prevented the Government evacuating many of those still living in the flattened city. It is also stopping the distribution of essential supplies which are piling up at the city's airport.

The former President, and now National Guard Commander, General Anastasio Somoza, spoke to newsmen about the damaged city.

SYNOPSIS: A lorry passes wreckage on a road in Managua...one of the few vehicles available in the earthquake-devastated city to help evacuate the remaining homeless. Fires still rage in the debris which buried countless thousands of Managua's population after last Saturday's earthquake.

Looting is one of the major problems for officials, along with food and water shortages and the ever-present fear of epidemics. This blazing soft drink building was one of the main targets for looters. With drinking water almost non-existent, the soft drinks became a source of vital uncontaminated fluids. The looters were running the risk of being shot on sight if caught.

Tent towns have spring up to house the twenty-four-thousand homeless still living in the city. Shortage of transport has prevented the Government from evacuating many of them. Injured are being treated at a tent-town medical centre.

As troops unload supplies at the presidential palace distribution centre, former President General Anastasio Somoza, now National Guard Commander, spoke to newsmen about damage at the city.

Of the city's three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand population, official estimates are that between two and three-thousand died in the earthquake. Unofficial sources put the figure at nearly ten times that. Because of the lack of facilities for preparing food, Red Cross officials have appealed for vast quantities of prepared meals packed in containers to help case the misery of the survivors.