‘We are in the hands of God’
Hurricane Iota pummels Central America
PUER TO CABE ZAS • Hurricane Iota flipped roofing onto the streets, blew down electricity poles and trees, and caused rivers to burst their banks as it battered northeastern Nicaragua on Tuesday, having killed at least two people in the region.
The strongest storm on record to reach Nicaragua, Iota struck late on Monday, packing winds of nearly 249 km/h. It was the second hurricane to hit Central America this month.
By 9 a. m. local time, the winds had fallen to 121 km/h as Iota moved inland toward southern Honduras, the U. S. National Hurricane Center said.
The port of Puerto Cabezas, still partly flooded and strewn with debris from devastation caused by Hurricane Eta two weeks ago, again bore the brunt. Frightened residents huddled in shelters.
“We could die,” said one, Inocencia Smith. “There is nothing to eat at all,” she added, noting that the area’s farms were wrecked by Eta, which killed dozens of people across the region.
The wind tore the roof off a makeshift hospital. Patients in intensive care and others were evacuated, including two women who gave birth during the first rains of the storm on Monday, Vice- President Rosario Murillo told a news conference.
Guillermo Gonzalez, head of Nicaragua’s disaster management agency SINAPRED, said first reports from the region indicated there had been damage to houses and roofs, fallen power lines and overflowing rivers. No deaths were reported, he said.
Unlike neighbouring countries, Nicaragua’s government did not register deaths from Eta, although the storm killed at least two people there, according to local media reports.
Iota passed close to Providencia, one of a cluster of islands in Colombia’s Caribbean province of San Andres, and local authorities reported at least one death.
“We have a critical situation in Providencia,” Colombian President Ivan Duque told local radio on Tuesday morning. “Many people have lost everything.” As much as 98 per cent of the island’s infrastructure may be destroyed, Duque added.
Panama’s government said a person had died in its western Ngäbe-buglé region due to conditions caused by storm.
“We are in the hands of God. If I have to climb up trees, I’ll do it,” said Jaime Cabal Cu, 53, a farmer in Guatemala’s southeastern province of Izabal. After taking his family to a shelter, he stayed to guard the house and their belongings.
“We don’t have food, but we are going to wait here for the hurricane that we’re asking God to stop from coming,” he said.