ABSTRACT
Trauma is not only a matter of individual depression, fear and anxiety but also an experience of communities in collective fashion. In addition to the survivors, rescue workers and journalists can find themselves suffering emotional repercussions. Disasters hit communities and affect individuals, transforming them in unexpected physical and psychological ways, and in turn, healing must proceed in both individual and collective ways.
Sometimes it is an emotional absence that causes the pain, but in the case of natural disasters, it can also be a very real one—when walls tumble, when people get swept to sea, when winds scatter houses, when people flee, families and friends and neighbors become separated. The issue of the disappeared—more commonly associated with forced political disappearances—is also a major source of trauma for survivors. One organization in Colombia is still reuniting family members more than 30 years after an avalanche destroyed the town of Armero.
