This Saturday the alerts increase in the Colombian archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia and the president, Gustavo Petro, declares the maximum alert.
The islands, located less than 400 kilometers east of the Nicaraguan coast on the Caribbean Sea, are in the estimated path of Tropical Storm
Julia
, which at seven o'clock at night the United States National Hurricane Center has declared a hurricane of category 1, with hurricane winds of 120 kilometers per hour.
It is highly probable that
Julia
will pass directly over the island of San Andrés, the most populated.
At 5 p.m. Colombian time this Saturday, IDEAM reported that the storm was 44 kilometers from San Andrés, with sustained winds of 110 kilometers per hour, and was moving west at a speed of 28 kilometers per hour. hour.
“
Julia
is meandering, that is why we must be very attentive to the island of San Andrés”, said the director of IDEAM around noon.
“The rains are already very heavy on the islands with significant accumulations of up to 25 millimeters in just three hours.
As predicted, we can have rainfall greater than 200 or 240 millimeters in the next few hours, and the threats of flooding, rising waters, landslides, are associated with these significant volumes of rainfall."
#AEstaHora: Video from Providencia of the general director of Ideam, Yolanda González👇🎥 on the passage of #TormentaTropicalJulia @UNGRD @infopresidencia @MinAmbienteCo pic.twitter.com/qcwE1OqMMY
– Ideam Colombia (@IDEAMColombia) October 8, 2022
On Friday afternoon, it passed north of the La Guajira peninsula, in the extreme northeast of Colombia, with maximum sustained winds of 65 kilometers per hour, according to the NHC.
This produced intense rains in the north of Colombia, with the consequence of the risk of flooding and landslides, according to IDEAM.
More than 19 thousand affected families are reported.
#Attention |
We share Special Announcement No. 155 with the following information:
🔴#Alarm |
Monitoring Tropical Storm Julia
Download it here 🔗 https://t.co/id9TVZmjCo pic.twitter.com/6C3PV5ordN
– Ideam Colombia (@IDEAMColombia) October 8, 2022
The forecast is that after passing through San Andrés
Julia
, it will head directly towards the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, that it will cross the country gradually losing strength, and that it will dissipate by next Tuesday by the time it reaches Mexico, after passing through El Salvador, Honduras. and Guatemala.
The governor of the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, Everth Julio Hawkins, has decreed the suspension of classes starting this Friday and the establishment of a curfew between 6:00 a.m. on Saturday and 6:00 a.m. 00 a.m. next Tuesday.
The Civil Aeronautics, for its part, has announced the suspension of commercial flights at the Gustavo Rojas Pinilla Airport in San Andrés (45 flights were cancelled) and at the El Embrujo Airport in Providencia.
The restriction will be implemented between 6:00 a.m. this Saturday and 12:00 noon on Sunday.
The islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina suffered the devastating passage of
Iota
in 2020. It was the most intense hurricane of that season in the Atlantic: it reached category 5 at times and left at least 84 dead in Nicaragua, Honduras and Colombia.
Months later, the inhabitants protested against the Government of Iván Duque due to the delays in rebuilding damaged homes and public services, especially in Providencia and its neighbor Santa Catalina.
The authorities have tried to bring peace to the population.
The President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, has assured on Twitter that the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) is already managing the situation with the installation of shelters in the area and this Saturday morning he announced that there is a Plan of the Unified Command ready and said that “all the hotel infrastructure must open space for shelters for the vulnerable population.”
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