Tegucigalpa, Honduras – Eta is moving over Honduras like a weakened tropical depression, but it still brings heavy rains that cause fatal landslides as they flood eastern and northern neighboring Nicaragua.
The typhoon no longer carried the winds of the category four hurricane that hit the Nicaraguan coast on Tuesday, but it moved so slowly and rained that much of Central America remained on alert. Eta had experienced winds of 35 mph (55 km/h). h) and moved from west-northwest to 7 mph (11 km/h) Wednesday night at 185 kilometers south-southeast of La Ceiba.
The long-term forecast indicated that Eta would return to the Caribbean on Thursday night and then become a tropical typhoon on Friday, which could succeed 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, Mayor Edy Chacón of the city of Sulaco in central Honduras said a 15-year-old boy drowned as he sought to cross a rain-grown river, which raised the death toll by the typhoon to at least 4 in Nicaragua and Honduras.
Aparicio said Wednesday that some 379 houses 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 are 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 the northern town of Tela since Monday.
“We lost everything, ” said the 32-year-old. ” I don’t know what we’re going to do. My husband is 74 years old and because of his age he can’t work. I even lost my little animals,” he said, referring to chickens, cats and dogs.
His wife and seven young men were in the same hostel, their space near the Lancet River was also flooded, and they only did so with the garments they wore.
“Monday’s rains and the river overflowed,” Martinez said Wednesday, “firefighters and police arrived to take us because the houses flooded. “
Martinez already in a desperate scenario before the storm, a painter of structures, had not been able to locate paintings for 8 months since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, sells tortillas to keep his circle of relatives 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 before the deportations of Eta, parts of Nicaragua and Honduras could 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 in northern Nicaragua, starting with the coastal city of Bilwi.
On Wednesday in Bilwi, civil defense brigades worked to clear the streets of felled trees, power lines and roof blades; some neighborhoods were absolutely flooded. Vice President and First Lady Rosario Murillo said more than 51,000 families were still 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. “
Two gold miners died on a landslide Tuesday in the Nicaraguan city of Bonanza, about 100 kilometres west of where Eta made landfall, Lieutenant César Malespin of the Bonanza Fire Department said.
In the northern province of Jinotega, communities have already flooded.
Northern Nicaragua is home to the country’s coffee production, an essential export. to the market.
“It’s still too early to assess the effect of rain, 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.
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Associated Press Christopher Sherman of Mexico City contributed to the report.