45 DEAD IN WAKE OF IOTA
MEXICO CITY — More than 45 people are dead in Central and South America in the wake of Iota, the storm that has ravaged the region in recent days, according to new figures on Thursday.
The death toll includes at least 18 victims in Nicaragua, 16 in Honduras, six in Guatemala, three in Panama, two in Colombia and one in El Salvador.
Iota struck Nicaragua's Caribbean coast on Monday as a Category 4 hurricane, with winds of 155 miles per hour. It later weakened and was downgraded to a tropical storm.
The storm had dissipated by Thursday, but its humidity was still bringing some rains and causing landslides.
In Honduras, where more than 2 million people were affected by Iota, residents continued being evacuated from risk areas.
The civil protection agency COPECO was trying to "access areas where several places have been left isolated, without food and water," Jaime Omar Silva from the agency told radio station HRN.
Deaths in the country included 13 people who were hit by two landslides in the western regions of Lempira and Ocotepeque.
In Guatemala, Iota affected more than 140,000 people, David Leon from the disaster management agency CONRED said on television.
The new storm came just two weeks after Hurricane Eta had killed at least 174 people and left about 100 missing in Central America.
Iota is already the 30th storm this year that has been strong enough to be given a name — the previous Atlantic record was 28.