Eta death toll nears 60 in Central America drenching
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — The rainheavy remnants of H urricane Eta flooded homes from Panama to Guatemala on T hursday as the death toll across Central America rose to at least 57, and aid organizations warned the flooding and mudslides were creating a slowmoving humanitarian disaster.
The storm that hit Nicaragua as a mighty Categor y 4 hurricane on Tuesday had become more of a vast tropical rainstorm, but it was advancing so slowly and dumping so much rain that much of Central America remained on high aler Forecasters said the nowtropical depression was expected to regather and head toward Cuba and possibly the Gulf of Mexico this coming week.
On Thursday afternoon, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said a watersoaked mountainside in the central par t of the countr y had
slid down onto the town of San Cristobal V erapaz, bur ying homes and leaving at least 25 dead.
Two other mudslides in Huehuete
nango had killed at least 12 more, he said. The president initially said more than 50 people had died in slides, but the individual incidents he cited did not reach that total. L ater, David de Leon, spokesman for the national disaster agency, said there were repor ts of 50 people missing in the V erapaz slide, but government resc ue teams had not reached the site.
Earlier on T hursday, five others had been killed in smaller slides in Guatemala.
Giammattei said 60 percent of the eastern cit y of P uerto Barrios was flooded and 48 more hours of rain was expected.
Guatemala’s toll was on top of 13 victims in Honduras and two in Nicaragua. P anamanian authorities reported eight missing.
Eta had sustained winds of 55 kilometers per hour and was moving north at 3 km/h on Thursday. It was centered 1 40 km nor thwest of La Ceiba, Honduras.