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Iota was downgraded to a tropical storm on Tuesday after hitting Nicaragua with heavy rain and winds, where thousands of people were cut off, with no water or electricity, as it continues its advance through Central America devastated two weeks ago by Cyclone Eta. .
After landing in Nicaragua on Monday as a Category 5 hurricane (the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale), “Iota has now degraded to a tropical storm, with maximum sustained winds of 105 km / h,” in northern Nicaragua, the Institute reported. Nicaraguan Territorial Studies (Ineter). (Recommend: first images of the destruction in Providencia after Iota’s passage)
The cyclone changed course north and headed west, with which it was expected to enter neighboring Honduras at the end of Tuesday, the Honduras civil protection agency for neighboring Honduras (Copeco) said.
The Iota Pass has killed four so far, including two children who died while trying to cross a river in southeastern Nicaragua, the country’s first lady, Rosario Murillo, informed. Similarly, two deaths have been reported on the Colombian island of Providencia and one in the Panamanian indigenous community of Ngäbe Buglé.
Stronger than Eta, Iota reached Nicaragua as a hurricane with maximum winds of 260 km / h, according to a report by the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), but then began to lose strength. (It may interest you: 2020, the year in which the highest number of hurricanes occurred in the Atlantic)
Flash floods and river floods that threaten the lives of residents are expected to continue until Thursday in parts of Central America due to Iota-caused rains, the NHC has warned. And in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala these phenomena “could be exacerbated by the recent effects of Hurricane Eta”, which also landed on November 3 in the Nicaraguan Caribbean and which caused at least 200 deaths and 2.5 million affected in Central America.
In Bilwi, Nicaragua’s major northern Caribbean city, there are “falling trees, electricity poles, house roofs that have been blown up and a hotel that has lost its entire roof,” said the director of the National Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Attention System (Sinapred), Guillermo González.
Without communication
Nicaragua’s Minister of Infrastructure Denis Moncada said the brigades are trying to clear 497 fallen trees on highways in the Caribbean municipalities of Rosita, Siuna and Bonanza. He indicated that on the Pacific coast there are roadblocks, mainly in the southern department of Rivas, on the Pan-American highway, due to the overflow of the Ochomogo River. (Recommended: How do hurricanes form? A brief explanation)
Sinapred reported that 48,000 people had been evacuated to Nicaragua, most of them in the northern Caribbean. But the full extent of the damage caused by Iota in the area is unknown because communication with Bilwi was cut off.
Nicaragua’s State Telecommunications Agency (Telcor) reported in a press release that there are “severe effects” on communications in that city. Similarly, the Nicaraguan government has ensured that 114,200 homes across the country were left without electricity and 47,638 without water.
Sinapred also warned of potential landslides due to heavy rain in other locations in Nicaragua.
Regional threat
As Iota approached Honduras, the military and police evicted residents from endangered areas in the Sula Valley region and from the banks of rivers and landslide-prone neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa.
In the Miskito community of Nueva Jerusalem in the Caribbean, winds destroyed the roof of the health center and 38 houses and uprooted trees, according to a report by Copeco.
The institution has announced that the heaviest rains will fall this Tuesday in the northern departments of Atlántida, Cortés, Comayagua (center) and Santa Bárbara (west).
Iota was also warned in Costa Rica, which reported 16 floods, mainly on the Pacific coast, and five landslides blocking routes, according to the National Emergency Commission. Guatemala was preparing for the “worst”, said President Alejandro Giammattei, even if the damage was less than expected.
The current hurricane season in the Atlantic has broken records. Iota is the thirteenth of the 30 named storms recorded this year to reach hurricane status.
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