TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Eta visited Honduras on Wednesday as a weakened tropical depression, but still bringing heavy flooding and fatal landslides in eastern Nicaragua and northern Nicaragua.
The typhoon no longer carried the winds of the category four hurricane that hit the Nicaraguan coast on Tuesday, but moved so slowly and with so much rain that much of Central America was on high alert. h) and moves west-northwest to 7 mph (11 km/h) on Wednesday night 185 kilometers south-southeast of La Ceiba.
Long-term forecasts show that Eta takes a turn over Central America and then becomes a tropical typhoon in the Caribbean, most likely arriving in Cuba on Sunday and South Florida on Monday.
Heavy rains are expected to continue in Honduras until at least Thursday, when Eta moved north to the capital of Tegucigalpa and the northern city of San Pedro Sula.
Even before the center of Eta arrived in Honduras, many others had been forced to leave their homes due to flooding.
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, a 12-year-old woman died on a landslide in San Pedro Sula, said Marvin Aparicio of Honduras’ emergency control agency.
On Wednesday afternoon, Honduras’ emergency control company showed the death of a 15-year-old boy in the city of Sulaco in central Honduras, Mayor Edy Chacón said the boy drowned across a rain-grown river. toll from the typhoon to at least 4 in Nicaragua and Honduras.
Aparicio said Wednesday that some 379 homes were destroyed, mainly by flooding, 38 communities were isolated by destroyed roads and five bridges in the country were destroyed by river floods.
Among those rescued from their flooded houses were Oscar Armando Martínez Flores, his wife and seven children, whose space near the Lancet River in northeastern Honduras flooded, only with the garments they wore.
“Monday’s rains and the river overflowed,” Martinez said Wednesday from a sports center that serves as a refuge in the village of Tela. “Firefighters and policemen arrived to take us because the houses flooded. “
Martinez was already in a desperate situation before the storm. A painter of structures, he had not been able to locate paintings for 8 months since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. He sells tortillas to keep his family circle afloat.
Francisco Argeal, head of meteorology at the Center for Atmospheric, Oceanographic and Seismic Studies in Honduras, said he hoped that more rivers would leave the country from its banks.
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 15 to 25 inches (380 to 635 millimeters) of rain, with 40 inches (1000 millimeters) imaginable in some remote areas.
Eta left a trail of destruction across northern Nicaragua starting with the coastal city of Bilwi.
On Wednesday in Bilwi, civil defense brigades worked to cut down the streets of felled trees, power lines and steel roofs, and some neighborhoods were absolutely flooded. Vice President and First Lady Rosario Murillo said more than 51,000 families were still on the force in the affected areas.
“Debris groups are starting to paint and we still can’t give a concept of what happened,” said Ivania Daaz, a local government official in Bilwi. “We have noticed some very modest houses absolutely destroyed. “
South of Bilwi, closer to where Eta landed on Tuesday, Wawa Bar’s Miskito beach network was devastated. The army had evacuated the net before Eta hit, but what citizens discovered Wednesday agonizing: wind-twisted trees, jagged roofs and some broken structures beyond reconnaissance were in the view of the sea.
“There’s nothing here,” an unidentified resident told a local television station. “Wawa Bar is now a miskita network where destruction reigns. “
Inland, flooding in Sara and the Prinzapolka River had increased by more than 3. 7 metres and threatened communities along its banks. “We’re tracking the Prinzapolka because there may be a threat of overflow,” Murillo said at a press convention on Wednesday.
Murillo said the government is preparing a report on the damage that would be used to seek foreign aid.
Nicaragua’s meteorology director, Marcio Baca, said the typhoon saturated the country’s north and pacific coast with heavy rains, comparing it to Hurricane Joan in 1988.
Two gold miners died on a landslide Tuesday in Bonanza, a few miles west of where Eta made landfall, said Lieutenant Cesar Malespin of the Bonanza Fire Department.
In the northern province of Jinotega, communities were already flooded. Flooding destroyed a suspension bridge over the Wamblan River and about 30 others were evacuated early Wednesday from Wiwili, according to local radio.
Northern Nicaragua is home to the country’s coffee production, an essential export. to the market.
“It’s still early to assess the effect of rains, but we can expect road network damage in northern cities,” Seville said. The harvest had not yet begun, but prolonged rains could cause the coffee to mature. too temporarily and its quality, he said.
In the Pacific, Tropical Storm Odalys continued across the ocean and poseed no risk to the land.
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Associated Press Christopher Sherman of Mexico City contributed to the report.
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