Forgotten million still reeling from Hurricane Mitch

El Trebol refugee camp perches on a shorn hilltop overlooking Tegucigalpa, Honduras. More than 400 families shelter in this cluster of plywood shacks that was hastily erected between two motorway junctions more than a year ago. Among them are Marita Fonseca and her six children, who consider themselves lucky to have any sort of roof over their heads. The Fonsecas are among the three million peopleacross Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize still reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Mitch.

Most of the residents displaced by the hurricane were poor and now cope stoically as emergency relief measures become daily routine.

Seventeen months after the storm lashed Central America, dumping 25 inches of rain on denuded hillsides and triggeringmudslides that buried 10,000 alive, the El Trebol camp is now on the city bus route. Ms Fonseca has double-patched her plastic windows to keep out fumes from burning rubbish and sweeps the floor of her one-room hut twice daily.

After dark, she does not dare fetch water from the communal tap at the end of the alley because she feels threatened by the new gangs of young men carrying guns.

Recently, she pasted wallpaper of a brick design over the wallboards for a cosy illusion of permanence. This single mother does not envision a move in the near future.

In Honduras, three-quarters of the hurricane refugees have moved on from desperate survival camps such as El Trebol, but 30,000 still remain.

Aid pledges came from around the world in the wake of Hurricane Mitch and its 180mph winds that nearly blew away the economic future of Central America but as new disasters grab headlines, the funds are slow to materialise.

Government plans for irrigation canals and new roads leading away from the bloated cities to centres that are less landslide-prone have been put on hold as donations have become tied up in red tape. The aid agencies are wise to the ways of corrupt politicians who delay implementing rescue programmes and pocket the interest, and are keeping tighter control of the money.

To repair most of the damage from Hurricane Mitch would cost $5bn (£3bn) in Honduras alone, where the gross domestic product is just $7bn. "We'll just have to do what we can with the little that we have," said the Finance Minister, Gabriela Nunez.