After hitting the Nicaraguan coast as a Category 4 hurricane, and degrading to a tropical storm on Tuesday, Iota is moving over southern Honduras.
But, despite continuing to weaken, it continues to threaten catastrophic floods and mudslides, in areas already affected by the Eta phenomenon.
At least six people died in Nicaragua
after the passage of Iota, according to authorities.
And local media reported that some 13 people were buried by a landslide in the community of El Carmen.
El Salvador also registered one death.
["My wife is dead, my grandchildren are dead." This survivor of the Eta storm says he lost 40 familiare]
In its latest update, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that Iota has maximum sustained winds of
40 miles per hour
(65 km / h) and that there is a tropical storm warning for the coast of Honduras.
Iota is expected to move over southern Honduras towards El Salvador during the early hours of Wednesday, before dissipating in the morning in the Pacific.
Hurricane Iota causes serious damage in Nicaragua
Nov. 18, 202002: 30
The storm passed about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south-southwest of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, where the
rivers overflowed
and the rains are expected to intensify.
There, residents of low-lying areas were evacuated due to heavy rains, as well as residents of neighborhoods on the slopes vulnerable to landslides.
On the eastern coast of
Honduras,
people had to leave their damaged and flooded homes.
"What affected us the most here was the flooding. The Barra Patuca sector has been flooded for the last two weeks," said Teonela Paisano Wood, mayor of the Honduran city of Brus Laguna.
"We are in danger if it continues to rain," he
added.
People watch the waters of the Bermejo River after Hurricane Iota hit San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on Tuesday, November 17, 2020. AP
Mirna Wood, vice president of the Miskito ethnic group in the Gracias a Dios region, in the eastern tip of Honduras, was in Tegucigalpa collecting donations for her community, devastated by Eta, when Iota struck.
More than 40,000 people from the area were transferred to shelters
but other people remained stranded near the Nicaraguan border.
Some were rescued by the authorities, he said.
In
Nicaragua
, the extent of the damage was unclear because much of the affected region was
still without electricity, telephone, internet service
, and strong winds hampered radio transmissions.
Iota made landfall just 25 kilometers south of where Hurricane Eta struck on November 3, also as a Category 4 storm.
Preliminary reports of damage
include downed trees, power poles and roofs ripped off
, said Guillermo González, director of Nicaragua's emergency management agency.
The wind tore off the roof where the Noticias Telemundo reporter was at dawn on Tuesday.
"It is redestructing, that is, double destruction,"
said a man interviewed by this chain.
["We'll probably be in recovery for years": Delta hits communities just hit by Hurricane Laura in Louisiana]
Later, the Nicaraguan vice president and first lady, Rosario Murillo, said that
six people died, including a minor and his sister, aged 11 and 8 years
respectively, who drowned in the community of La Piñuela when trying to cross the swollen Solera river .
Missing persons were registered in the same area.
Two other people,
father and son
, died buried in a community in the Wiwili municipality, Jinotega department (north), as a result of a landslide.
The deceased were identified as Carlos and Francisco Carazo, who were in a shelter and returned home to bring their belongings, when they were surprised by the landslide, according to the information.
In that same department, Carlos José López Méndez died, who was in a drunken state when he lost his life, according to the official report.
The sixth victim is María de Jesús Duarte, who died when she was looking at a pipe and the piece of ravine where she was standing collapsed.
That happened in the municipality of Quilalí, near the border with Honduras.
The director of Meteorology of the Nicaraguan Institute for Territorial Studies (Ineter), Marcio Baca, affirmed that
Iota is the most powerful hurricane recorded in the history of Nicaragua.
In
El Salvador,
a 30-year-old young man was the first victim generated by the effects of the storm.
The Minister of the Interior and president of the National Civil Protection Commission, Mario Durán, explained that the victim was traveling on a motorcycle when a tree fell on him, which gave way due to the strong winds.
He indicated that the deceased "was carrying an 18-month-old girl, who, according to what I have been informed, was transferred to a hospital and is stable" and indicated that the incident took place in the eastern city of San Miguel.
In
Panama
, authorities reported that
one person died
and another disappeared in the west of the Ngabe Bugle indigenous autonomy, near the border with Costa Rica.
The government assured that at least 35 cities in the east and north were left without telephone service.
Nicaragua's Telecommunications Ministry said broadband and phone provider Columbus Networks was offline due to flooding in the coastal city of Puerto Cabezas, also known as Bilwi.
[This is how Nicaragua prepared for the impact of Iota after that of Eta]
Iota is the 30th named storm
in a
historic
Atlantic hurricane season
.
It also developed later than any other Category 5 storm in the season, beating a Cuban hurricane on November 8, 1932, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.
Hurricane season officially ends on November 30.
Edited by Gabriela Martínez with information from AP and EFE.