TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The remnants of Hurricane Eta flooded homes in Guatemala on Thursday, while the death toll in Central America increased to at least 57. Meteorologists have said that the once powerful storm, now a tropical depression, gathers and heads to Cuba and in all likelihood the Gulf of Mexico early next week.
The typhoon that hit Nicaragua like a category four hurricane on Tuesday had more than one large tropical rainfall typhoon, however, it moved so slowly and rain fell that much of Central America remained on high alert.
Governments and humanitarian organizations have warned that floods and landslides caused by heavy rains have created a slow humanitarian disaster in much of the region.
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said Thursday afternoon 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.
Two slides in Huehuetenango had killed at least 12 seconds, he said. On early Thursday, five seconds died on smaller slides in Guatemala.
The death toll in Guatemala adds to thirteen in Honduras and two in Nicaragua, while the Panamanian government reported 8 missing.
Eta had experienced winds of 35 mph (55 km/h) and moved from the northwest to thirteen km/h (8 mph) on Thursday and concentrated 95 kilometers west of La Ceiba, Honduras.
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. Giammattei showed a fourth death on 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.
Honduran National Police said six more bodies had been recovered, raising the death toll in the country to 13. The bodies of two adults and two young men were discovered after excavations of a landslide in the municipality of Gualala on Wednesday and two children over the age of 8 and 11 died in another landslide in the canton of El Nuspero.
Earlier, citizens discovered the body of a woman buried in a landslide Wednesday in the mountains on the outskirts of the north coast of the city of Tela. In the same area, a landslide buried a space with a mother and two young women inside, according to Honduran Fire The department’s spokesman, Oscar Triminio, said a 2-year-old woman also died in the Santa Barbara branch when she crawled through 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 Neighborhood of San Pedro Sula had to leave their homes on Thursday morning when the water of the Chamelecón River reached their door.
Honduran officials previously reported that a 12-year-old woman died on a landslide and that a 15-year-old boy drowned as she sought to cross a rain-grown river. Two more deaths were reported in Nicaragua.
Marvin Aparicio of the Honduran emergency control agency said Wednesday that some 457 homes were damaged, most commonly by flooding, and 41 communities were isolated by destroyed roads.
Among those rescued were Karen Patricia Serrano, her husband and their five children, whose space was flooded by the waters of the Lancet River and were in a hostel in Tela since Monday.
“We’ve lost everything,” the 32-year-old said. “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.
“It’s worrying, a lot of help is needed,” said Javier Pitto, mayor of the Highlands in Chiriquí. Landslides had closed many roads, 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 15 to 25 inches (380 to 635 millimeters) of rain, with 40 inches (1000 millimeters) imaginable in some remote areas.
When what’s left of the typhoon returns to the Caribbean, it will regain strength and again a tropical typhoon, according to forecasts.
And then Eta is expected to move slowly to Cuba and Florida, or at least close enough to Florida for meteorologists to notice 7 inches of rain in South Florida over the next five to seven days. the Gulf of Mexico.
“Anything that comes out of Central America is going to last a while,” said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University. “I’m convinced we’re done with Eta. “
That’s because what’s left of Eta still has effects, which is hard to kill, and helps it reform, said Jim Kossin, NOAA’s hurricane and climate specialist.
Once reformed and heading to Cuba, wandering around the region for a while, as long-term style forecasts reveal.
“The winds may not be the problem. Rains will be the problem,” Klotzbach said.
Eta will be so big, rainy and messy that he may not have to make landfall in South Florida already drenched in rain to cause a disaster, Klotzbach said.
“Unpleasant tropical storms that move slowly can involve precipitation, even if they don’t make landfall,” Klotzbach said.
———
Pérez D. returned from Guatemala City. Associated Press editors Juan Zamorano in Panama, Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to the report.
24/7 policy of the latest news and events