Hurricane heads to Central America

HURRICANE Otto was forecast to strengthen in the Caribbean as it churned toward Central America onTuesday, causing three deaths in Panama and prompting coastal evacuations in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Otto became the seventh hurricane of the 2016 Atlantic season.

The hurricane, which is packing maximum sustained winds of 120 kilometres per hour, is expected to pick up strength and speed as it moves westward, approaching Costa Rica and Nicaragua today before making landfall, the National Hurricane Center said in a 0300 GMT bulletin yesterday.

Currently, hurricane-force winds were extending up to 10 miles from the centre.

Otto’s rains “will likely result in lifethreatening flash floods and mud slides”, while“life-threatening surf and rip-current conditions” will be experienced along the coasts of Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, the Miami-based centre warned.

In Panama, two people died from a mudslide and one was killed by a falling tree at the onset of Otto’s heavy rain, the head of the National Civil Protection Service, Jose Donderis, said. Nine people were caught in the mudslide that occurred west of the capital. “Seven were rescued and unfortunately two deceased people were recovered,” he said. The other death was that of a boy hit by a tree that fell on the car he was in while waiting with his mother outside his school in the capital, Donderis said. The mother survived.

Neighbouring Costa Rica on Tuesday ordered the evacuation of more than 4,000 people along the sparsely inhabited northern part of its Caribbean coast to avoid fatalities. Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America, has issued a national alert and also ordered coastal evacuations.