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Central American nations have reported displaced persons and after landslides and floods, dozens of people, from Guatemala to Panama, have died.
By Associated Press
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras – As the remnants of Hurricane Eta moved through Caribbean waters, Central American governments worked to count other displaced and dead, and landslide and flooding bodies that killed dozens of people from Guatemala to Panama.
It will be days before Eta’s true death toll is known: his torrential rains hit economies already strangled by the COVID-19 pandemic, took everything they had little to and exposed the shortcomings of governments unable to reach out.
In Guatemala, an army brigade reached a large landslide on Friday morning in the central mountains, where about 150 houses were buried on Thursday. He did not make a body without delay, although he said more than a hundred more people would be missing.
At a press conference, President Alejandro Giammattei said he believed there were at least a hundred dead in the San Cristobal Verapaz area, although he noted that the figure is unrefirmed.
“The landscape is confusing in this area,” he said, noting that rescuers were struggling at the site.
A week of torrential rains through the typhoon spoiled crops, swept off bridges and flooded houses throughout Central America. Its slow and winding path north through Honduras has brought rivers to its shores and to neighborhoods where families have been forced to climb the rooftops to wait. Relief.
Francisco Argeal, a leading meteorologist at the Center for Atmospheric, Oceanographic and Seismic Studies, said that in two days up to 20 centimeters of rain had fallen in some areas.
On Friday, the number of casualties in Honduras increased to at least 21.
“In the coming hours, we will begin to see, to our regret, dantesque scenes of other uncovered people dead” as they recede the waters, said Marvin Aparicio, an official of the Honduran emergency control agency.
Forecasts show that Eta is strengthening into an expired tropical typhoon on Friday before arriving in the Cayman Islands on Saturday and crossing Cuba on Sunday. From there, you can succeed in Florida or eventually head to the Gulf coast of the United States, the long-term way. remains uncertain.
“Everything that comes out will last a while,” said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University. “I’m convinced we’re done with Eta. “
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