Severe Rains Cause $330 Million in Damage

Costa Rica’s government estimated this week that the heavy rains that hammered the country from the onset of September through recent weeks will cost the state at least $330 million.

Fixing infrastructure will carry the most expensive price tag. The Ministry of Public Works (MOPT) announced that repairing or rebuilding the nearly 1,000 kilometers of road that were damage will cost $232.84 million in addition to the $10 million that the ministry has already spent thus far.

The government reports that it has $120 million to post toward infrastructure repair, including a $15 million dollar loan from the World Bank.

The rains caused damage to a total of 3,392 houses, 672 of those houses have been declared as a total loss. Housing repairs and construction will cost around $50 million, according to Costa Rica’s second vice president, Luis Liberman.

The government has also estimated that losses in the agriculture sector will cost $30 million. Costa Rica’s Labor Ministry has already directed $6 million in subsidies to 5,500 small farmers who lost their crops.

In a press conference Tuesday, Liberman called the magnitude of the damages “much greater than Costa Ricans had originally believed.”