Iota roars into Nicaragua

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS >> Hurricane Iota battered Nicaragua with screeching winds and pounding surf Tuesday, chasing tens of thousands of people from their homes along the same stretch of the Caribbean coast that was devastated by an equally powerful hurricane just two weeks ago.

The extent of the damage was unclear because much of the affected region was without electricity and phone and internet service, and strong winds hampered radio transmissions.

Preliminary reports from the coast included toppled trees and electric poles and roofs stripped from homes and businesses, said Guillermo González, director of Nicaragua’s emergency management agency. More than 40,000 people were in shelters.

Later, Nicaragua Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo said that a brother and sister, ages 11 and 8, had drowned in the community of La Pinuela trying to cross the swollen Solera River. There were reports of others missing in the same area.

A day earlier, Iota intensified into a Category 5 storm, but it weakened as it neared the coast and made landfall with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph.

The system came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane about 30 miles south of the Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas, also known as Bilwi. That was just 15 miles south of where Hurricane Eta made landfall Nov. 3, also as a Category 4 storm.

By Tuesday night, Iota had diminished to a tropical storm and was moving inland over northern Nicaragua and southern Honduras. It had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and was spinning westward at 12 mph.

The storm passed about 25 miles south- southwest of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, where rivers were rising and rain was expected to intensify.

Aid agencies struggled to reach their local contacts, and the government said in a statement that at least 35 towns in the east and north had no phone service.

Nicarag ua’s telecommunications ministry said phone and broadband provider Columbus Networks was of f line because of f looding in Bilwi.

Along Honduras’ remote eastern coast Tuesday, people continued evacuating from damaged and flooding homes.