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EVACUATED: A family has been evacuated from their home in Bilwi, Nicaragua.
Storm surges, torrential rains, landslides and deaths were announced after Hurricane “Iota” struck Central America Tuesday night. Many thousands have been evacuated.
While the region is still struggling with the consequences of the catastrophic storm “Eta” that wiped out crops and killed dozens of people two weeks ago, a new disaster is expected.
Hurricane “Iota” was upgraded to category five on Monday afternoon, which is the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Before making landfall in Nicaragua, it was downgraded to a category four.
– It is the strongest hurricane that has hit Nicaraguan soil since the measurements began, says director Marcio Baca of the Department of Natural Studies at Reuters news agency.
Authorities say at least 40,000 have been evacuated. Among them were patients from a temporary hospital, but two women who were in labor when the storm swept through the country and ripped off the roof of the hospital, says Vice President Rosario Murillo.
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Several cities in Central America are still partially flooded and the land is saturated with water after the “Eta”, and the World Food Program has declared that several million need help in the form of food in the wake of the storm.
Authorities from Panama to Guatemala have tried to evacuate people from hills, volcanoes and bodies of water, fearing that “Iota” will bring the same destruction.
FLIGHTS: People carry their belongings to a shelter in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, before Hurricane “Iota” made landfall. Photo: Wilmer Lopez / STRINGER / Reuters
“What is coming to us now is a bomb,” Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández said Monday during a joint press conference with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei.
According to the Reuters news agency, the presidents described Central America as the region of the world most affected by climate change, saying that tens of thousands of families have lost entire crops after the devastation of “Eta.”
“Iota” will leave Honduras and our neighbors in a very difficult situation, Hernández said.
EVACUATION: A girl stands in front of a small house in Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua before Hurricane Iota makes landfall. Photo: STR / AFP
Local authorities and the navy have made desperate attempts to evacuate the families. In Honduras, 80,000 people have been evacuated, reports the Reuters news agency.
“There are villages that can protect themselves or save themselves, while others cannot cope with this disaster after ‘Eta’,” said Teonela Wood, mayor of Brus Laguna in Honduras.
“The biggest problem we have now is that we don’t have enough fuel to keep evacuating people by boat,” Wood says.
The 2020 hurricane season has been abnormal, and the hits in Central America are in the midst of an economic crisis due to the pandemic.
Climate change is causing more rains and more droughts in Central America, which in turn could lead to more poverty and force people to flee their homes, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said last week.
Experts fear that worsening conditions due to the storms will lead to more infected, hungrier and start a new round of migration from the region, according to Reuters.
