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LThe General Maritime Directorate (Dimar), responsible for the National Meteorological Service, attached to the Center for Oceanographic and Hydrographic Research of the Caribbean, Cioh reported yesterday that hurricane Iota reached category 5 as it passed near the Colombian island territory.
The entity stated that the cyclone has strengthened and continues to affect the Colombian archipelago of San Andrés with all its force, especially the Providencia, Santa Catalina and Banco Quitasueño Islands.
According to information from Ideam, hurricane-force winds with intensities greater than 178 kilometers per hour and waves greater than three or four meters in height were expected. In San Andrés, meanwhile, the winds were expected to be around 117 kilometers per hour.
Also read: It is the first time in history that a category 5 hurricane has reached Colombia.
Uncertainty in Providencia
The fate of the island of Providencia, hit since early Monday by Hurricane Iota has the rest of the country in suspense because it lost all communication with that Caribbean territory.
The 17-square-kilometer island, which has about 5,000 inhabitants, is part of the San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina archipelago, located about 700 kilometers from the continental coast of Colombia, on the Iota route in its devastating advance through the Caribbean towards Central America.
The eye of Hurricane Iota passed several tens of kilometers north of San Andrés, the main island of the archipelago, but crossed Providencia, a paradisiacal island with turquoise blue waters located about 90 kilometers to the northeast.
The last communication with Providencia was at 03:00 local time on Monday and since then both the authorities and relatives of the island’s inhabitants have tried, without success, by all means to contact them.
“The archipelago is without electricity, Providencia without total communication, without marine VHF, cell phones, satellite phones,” the archipelago’s governor, Everth Hawkins, warned in a message on Twitter.
Video images that some people have uploaded to social networks from San Andrés show the force of the hurricane as it passed through that island, where it destroyed houses and uprooted trees, which make people fear the worst in Providencia since the latter is characterized by its constructions made of wood, less resistant to the force of a category five hurricane.
As a result of the passage of the hurricane, the Civil Aeronautics ordered the closure of operations at the Gustavo Rojas Pinilla de San Andrés airport, due to the effects of the Iota crossing, which puts the safety of travelers at risk. Tourists who had arrived on the island a few days ago stated that they are locked in their hotels.
Duque leads PMU
The President of the Republic, Iván Duque, led an extraordinary session of the National Disaster Management Committee on Monday, to define the institutional response to the emergency caused by the passage of hurricane Iota, category 5, through the archipelago of San Andrés and Providence.
“I have instructed to advance PMU that approaches the place of affectation to verify the conditions. Due to the weather situation we have not been able to mobilize, however, I have instructed that our forces move with humanitarian material, ”said the head of state.
The president argued that the country is facing an event that has characteristics that have never been seen. “It is the first time in history that a category 5 hurricane has arrived in the country, so we have been surveying the damage and are monitoring with the Risk Management Unit.”
He also made it clear that communication with Providencia has been complicated, however, he assured that “as soon as conditions allow it, I will be going personally to San Andrés. It is a great challenge facing our country ”.
Eduardo José González Angulo, director of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, reported that once the airport service is reestablished on the island, the operational deployment will be carried out in the area to implement the response, recovery and rebuild if necessary.
San Andrés had already been impacted by the passage of hurricane ETA. In response to this, 1,000 food kits, 1,000 mats, 1,000 blankets and 89,650 liters of water had been delivered to affected island residents.
The vice president, Marta Lucía Ramírez, for her part, called on Camacol and other union organizations to begin collecting construction materials to support the reconstruction of the areas affected by the hurricane.
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