Iota, a hurricane turned tropical storm, entered Honduras on Tuesday (November 17) after having already caused at least nine deaths and enormous damage in Central America, especially in Nicaragua where thousands of people are isolated, without drinking water or electricity.
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Torrential rains from Iota continue to ravage parts of Central America already devastated two weeks ago by a previous hurricane, Eta.
Iota killed at least six people in Nicaragua, including two children, one in Panama and two others in a Colombian archipelago.
The tropical storm entered Honduras in the country's eastern Paraiso department and could reach El Salvador on Wednesday morning, said Francisco Argeñal, chief meteorologist for Honduran civil protection.
The government of Honduras has closed the country's main roads until Wednesday due to the high risk of flash flooding rivers.
After amassing energy in the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, Iota made landfall in Nicaragua on Monday as a Category 5 hurricane, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
It then brought strong winds sometimes reaching 260 kilometers per hour, according to the American center for hurricane monitoring, the NHC, based in Miami (Florida).
Persistent threat
Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, after Iota passed through November 17, 2020. STR / AFP
The NHC has warned that flooding and flash floods posing a serious threat to people in parts of Central America will continue until Thursday due to torrential rains brought by Iota.
Many regions had already been hit and weakened by Eta, which made landfall on November 3 in Nicaragua as a category 4 hurricane and killed at least 200 and affected 2.5 million people.
In Nicaragua, the port city of Bilwi, the main agglomeration of the Caribbean region of the country, was hit hard, suffering extensive damage.
Two children died on Monday as they tried to cross a swollen stream and four other people perished Tuesday in various parts of Nicaragua, victims of floods and landslides, announced the Nicaraguan vice president, Rosario Murillo.
Thousands of "
isolated
" people
Thousands of Bilwi residents remained isolated on Tuesday, deprived of telecommunications, water and electricity.
The flooding of the Wawa River also prevented any passage between the region and the rest of Nicaragua.
"
Trees fell, as well as electricity pylons, roofs of houses flew up and a hotel lost its entire roof,
" said the director of the Nicaraguan civil protection services (Sinapred), Guillermo Gonzalez.
More than 110,000 homes are without electricity and more than 47,000 no longer have running water, according to Nicaraguan authorities.
In Colombia, two people were killed and another was reported missing on two Colombian islands, Santa Catalina and Providencia, where much of the infrastructure was destroyed, President Ivan Duque, who visited the site, announced on Tuesday. .
A flooded street in San Andres, Colombia, November 17, 2020. LIANA FLOREZ / AFP
In Panama, a woman from an indigenous community has died and some 2,000 people are staying in shelters, according to the authorities.
In Guatemala, where the previous hurricane left 46 dead and 96 missing, the meteorological institute predicts an increase in precipitation on Wednesday and Thursday across the country on already soggy soils, conducive to flooding and landslides.
A record 30 tropical storms have been recorded this season in the Caribbean, Central America, and the southeastern United States.
The heads of state of Central American countries accuse industrialized countries of being responsible for global warming.
They jointly presented a request for reconstruction aid to international financial organizations on Monday.