Eta’s remains, rainy and flooded houses in Panama, Guatemala, as the death toll in Central America amounted to at least 57 and humanitarian teams warned that floods and landslides were creating a slow humanitarian catastrophe.
The typhoon that hit Nicaragua like a category four hurricane on Tuesday had more than one major tropical typhoon on Thursday, however, it moved so slowly and rained down that much of Central America remained on high alert.
Meteorologists said the now tropical depression is expected to strengthen and head towards Cuba and, in all likelihood, to the Gulf of Mexico earlier next week.
On Thursday afternoon, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said that a water-soaked mountain in the central component of the country had glided over the city of San Cristobal Verapaz, burying houses and killing at least 25 people.
A submerged evangelical church is observed along a flooded street as Storm Eta passed in Pimienta, Honduras [Jorge Cabrera / Reuters] Two other landslides in Huehuetenango killed at least 12 others, he said. Early Thursday, five others died on smaller landslides in Guatemala.
Guatemala’s death toll is in addition to thirteen other people who died in Honduras and two in Nicaragua. The Panamanian government reported eight missing.
Eta had experienced winds of 35 mph (55 km/h) and moved from the northwest to 8 mph (13 km/h) on Thursday.
In Guatemala, two young men died when their home collapsed from heavy rains in the central branch of Quiché, according to a report by local firefighters. A third user also died in Quiché, but the main points were not available without delay. a landslide in Chinautla on Wednesday night.
On Thursday, Giammattei told local radio that 60% of the eastern city of Puerto Barrios had flooded and that 48 more hours of rain were expected.
People walk down a flooded street at storm Eta in La Lima, Honduras [Jorge Cabrera / Reuters] In Honduras, national police said six more bodies had recovered, raising the death toll in the country to 13.
The bodies of two adults and two young men were discovered Wednesday after excavations on a landslide at the Gualala Correction, and two children over the age of 8 and 11 died on a landslide at the El Nispero Corregimiento.
Previously, citizens discovered the body of a young woman buried in a landslide on Wednesday in the mountains just outside the north coast of the city of Tela, in the same area, a landslide buried a space with a mother and two young people inside, according to Honduran. Oscar Triminio, spokesman for the Fire Department.
He said a two-year-old woman also died at the Santa Barbara branch when she was swept away by the floods.
Heavy rains are expected to continue in Honduras until at least Thursday, as Eta heads towards the northern city of San Pedro Sula.
Dozens of citizens of a community of San Pedro Sula were forced to leave theirs in the early hours of Thursday when the water of the Chamelecón River reached its gates.
Honduran officials previously reported that a 12-year-old woman died on a landslide and a 15-year-old boy drowned as she sought to cross a rain-grown river.
Line manufacturers fix a force line that runs through a fallen tree due to strong winds caused by tropical typhoon Eta in San Salvador, El Salvador [José Cabezas / Reuters] Marvin Aparicio, from Honduras’ emergency control firm, said Wednesday that 457 houses had been broken, basically by 41 communities were isolated by destroyed roads.
Among those rescued are Karen Patricia Serrano, her husband and five children, their space flooded by the waters of the Lancetille River and they were in a hostel in Tela since Monday.
“We lost everything, ” said the 32-year-old. ” I don’t know what we’re going to do. I even lost my little animals,” he says, referring to chickens, cats and dogs.
At least 8 other people have reportedly disappeared after floods and landslides in Panama’s Chiriquí province, which borders Costa Rica.
People push a car into a flooded street at storm Eta’s pass in La Lima, Honduras [Jorge Cabrera / Reuters] “The stage is worrying, a lot of help is needed,” said Javier Pitti, mayor of the Highlands in Chiriquí Array. Many roads were closed, adding the main road that unites the province with the rest of Panama.
Homes of more than two hundred citizens of the Ngabe Bugle Indigenous Autonomous Area were flooded.
The U. S. National Hurricane Center has been in the middle of the world. But it’s not the first time It predicts that parts of Nicaragua and Honduras can obtain between 380 and 635 millimeters (15 to 25 inches) of rain, with more imaginable in some remote areas.
When what’s left of the typhoon returns to the Caribbean, it will regain strength and become a tropical typhoon again, according to forecasts.
Eta is then expected to move slowly to Cuba and Florida, or at least close enough to Florida for meteorologists to notice seven inches of rain in South Florida over the next seven days.
We’ve lost everything. I don’t know what we’re going to do, I even lost my little animals.
Next week, Eta could even move to the Gulf of Mexico.
“Anything that comes out [of Central America] is going to last a while,” said Phil Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University.
“I am convinced that we are done with Eta. “
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