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(CNN Spanish) – The passage of Hurricane Iota, now a tropical storm, has been devastating. The powerful cyclone reached category 5, the largest on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and impacted the Colombian islands of San Andrés and Providencia with its powerful winds. It made landfall in Nicaragua as a category 4 and continues its path of destruction through Central America. This is what we know.
San Andrés and Providencia felt the first impacts
The Colombian islands of San Andrés and Providencia suffered serious damage from the winds of Hurricane Iota, which shook the area with all the force of its winds, storm surge and torrential rains. Weather conditions have made communication with the islands difficult, but videos of the catastrophe left by the cyclone are beginning to emerge.
Never has such a powerful hurricane reached the islands of San Andrés and Providencia, said Colombian President Iván Duque. The situation that Iota caused is unprecedented in the country, added the president.
LOOK: The effects of the powerful hurricane Iota, category 5, reach the islands of San Andrés and Providencia, in Colombia
About 98-99% of the infrastructure on the Colombian island of Providencia was wiped out by Hurricane Iota, Duque said at a press conference Tuesday morning.
The president added that although the storm has already passed over the island, sea conditions are still too difficult for the Navy ships to reach Providencia. Duque says he was able to personally fly over the island on Tuesday and will try to land on the island by helicopter later
The El Embrujo airport in Providencia is unusable due to debris, and in a preliminary balance, Duque said that at least one person died. There is no data on injuries so far, explained Duque, but warned that it was necessary to prepare
Duque explained that they will send 2 field hospitals and 4,000 tents to Providencia, since they assume that the hospital was destroyed
The Colombian president stressed that the damage in San Andrés was “significantly less” than in Providencia. According to Duque, there is also damage to homes, electrical installations and other services
San Andrés and Providencia have belonged to Colombia for centuries, but they are closer to Central America than to the mainland of the South American country.
Nicaragua and Honduras: strong winds and damage to telecommunications
The hurricane reached Category 5 strength, but made landfall near the city of Haulover, Nicaragua, at 10:40 pm Miami time, as Category 4, with maximum sustained winds near 250 km / h, according to the Center. National Hurricane Hurricane (NHC, for its acronym in English). Since then it has weakened.
The storm surge forecast along the coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras will be accompanied by “large and destructive waves,” along with floodwaters causing “life-threatening waves and rip current conditions,” according to the advisory.
In Honduras, a group of people in a shelter (Yoseph Amaya / Getty Images)
Telcor, the regulatory body for telecommunications services and postal services in Nicaragua, reported this Tuesday that it has registered “serious effects” on telecommunications in the municipality of Puerto Cabezas because Columbus Networks, a broadband provider, is out of service for a flood in its plant, located in Puerto Cabezas. The outage directly affects the operators serving this area, who depend on the fiber optic service provided by Columbus.
Crews were coordinated with specialized technical personnel to make repairs to infrastructure damage, who will mobilize according to weather conditions, they reported.
In a statement published on the website of the National System for Prevention and Attention to Disasters (Sinapred), they also reported “lack of power supply, fiber optic cuts due to strong winds and falling of poles and radio links misaligned by the force of the winds”.
Nicaragua’s disaster management agency SINAPRED says no casualties have yet been reported after Hurricane Iota that made landfall on Tuesday.
SINAPRED said on its official Twitter account that several municipalities in the Rivas region in southwestern Nicaragua have been affected by the hurricane.
#Huracanlota 🚨🌀🇳🇮
This is what some houses and patios look like in #Bilwi after the passage of the hurricane. The call to families to remain calm, to stay away from vulnerable places or places that represent a danger to human security.#SinapredWe are all #PreventIsLive pic.twitter.com/fdEcYULO0G
– Official CD-SINAPRED (@cdsinapred) November 17, 2020
In the Rivas region, authorities are monitoring the high volume of the main river flows and have put the most vulnerable families in shelters, SINAPRED said.
The disaster management agency published photos of damaged houses in Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, on the north Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. SINAPRED said that preliminary information reports fallen trees in the area, power lines and fallen roofs, but there are still no reports of victims. The agency urged the citizens of Bilwi to remain calm and stay away from any vulnerable or dangerous places.
In Honduras, the National Center for Atmospheric, Oceanographic and Seismic Studies (Cenaos) of Copeco warned that the rains will be “dangerous and deadly” despite the fact that Iota is downgraded. They predict that the cloud bands and circulation associated with the phenomenon will be producing intermittent and widespread rains and showers in most of the country.
Wind conditions with hurricane force exceeding 120 km / h keep a hurricane warning in effect from Cabo de Gracias a Dios to Barra Patuca in the department of Gracias a Dios, as well as for the entire Honduran Caribbean Coast and the Islas de la Bay.
Tropical storm watch was issued, expecting waves of “4 to 6 feet with maximums of 8 feet and winds with tropical storm force between 63 to 118 km / h.”
Immediately and urgently, mandatory evacuations must be carried out in the danger zones of the following departments:
Thank God
Atlantis
Cuts
Colon
Yoro
Francisco Morazán
Olancho
The Paradise
Choluteca
Valley
All areas were impacted by ETA
Guatemala: 124 municipalities at high or medium risk from Hurricane Iota
The National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction of Guatemala (Conred) identified 124 municipalities at high or medium risk of flooding from Iota. In a statement, they reported that of these, 59 are at high risk, most of them in the department of Alta Verapaz, in the north of the country. About 65 are at medium risk from flooding. In the early hours of this Tuesday, Conred reported the rain record over some regions in the north of the country. At the moment there are no incidents associated with Iota.
They added that for the next few hours “the persistence of cloudy with intermittent rains and drizzles is expected, mainly in the departments of Petén, Izabal, the northern cross-section and regions of the center and east of the country.” The report concludes that significant rainfall accumulations could occur in the aforementioned regions.
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