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From: TT
Published:
Photo: NOAA / AP / TT
A satellite image showing Hurricane Iota on Monday shortly after lunch, Swedish time.
Storm Iota became a powerful hurricane as it now approaches land in Central America, less than two weeks after Eta’s devastating advance in the region.
This year’s hurricane season continues to break dismal records.
Iota broke out as a tropical storm in the Caribbean last Friday. Since then, it has grown rapidly in strength. On Monday, the US Hurricane Center warned the NHC that it is now an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane heading toward Nicaragua and Honduras.
There it is expected to land on Tuesday, Swedish time.
Authorities in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua have been forced to announce new evacuations, amid the chaos that followed the ravages of Eta. As many as 200 people died when the large amounts of rain brought by the hurricane caused landslides and flooding.
Fight the clock
In the Nicaraguan coastal city of Bilwi, residents are desperately trying to reinforce the roofs of their fragile wooden houses with the same type of sheet metal that was ripped off by Eta, reports AFP.
Some refuse to follow calls to leave the area, for fear of contracting Covid-19.
– Some of us prefer to die in our homes, Silvania Zamora tells the news agency.
– Never before has there been a new hurricane in such a short time. But what can be done against the powers of God and nature?
This is the first time that two of the so-called intense tropical hurricanes have occurred in the Atlantic during the same month of November, says SMHI.
Hurricane 13
Iota is the thirteenth tropical hurricane in the Atlantic during the season this year. It has only been exceeded once since statistics began to be compiled in 1851 on tropical storms, that is, in 2005, when 15 tropical hurricanes were recorded.
Nicaraguan authorities estimate that some 80,000 families are at risk of being affected by the progress of Iota and that every effort is being made to evacuate as many as possible.
In Honduras, police and military have been deployed to evacuate people from San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city, and its surroundings. The government also ordered a reduction in water levels in the dam that belongs to the country’s largest hydroelectric plant to try to prevent it from flooding.
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