Tegucigalpa is the capital of and largest city in Honduras. Tegucigalpa (Hondurans in general, and people familiar with the city, shorten it to "Tegus", while most locals actually use the full name...) is a great example Central America of urban sprawl gone amok, spread out across very hilly terrain. Of course, the city, a 400 year-old mining center, has a depth that is there for those with time and nerve to find it. It has a plethora of interesting, if decaying, old colonial building, and many old stone streets, winding intriguingly up steep hills, to hidden parks, stone steps, and old houses. The defining event in recent Honduran history, and that of Tegucigalpa also, is Hurricane Mitch, which devastated the country in 1998. Mitch reportedly set the country back 50 years. Tegus is still recovering from the massive flooding of the river, and equally massive landslides, both triggered by the rampant deforestation of the hills surrounding the city. Indeed, signs of whole colonias (neighbourhoods) having slid off steep hills are still evident. Workers continue to toil daily in the river, removing silt deposited by the flooding. Many or most people lost friends and relatives during the crisis.