Hurricane Iota brings catastrophic winds and life-threatening floods a few miles from the site of the Etta landslide

Hurricane Type 5 strengthened, and at 10:40 pm EST near Halloween, Nicaragua, the landslide became a Type 4, with winds of up to 155 mph. National Hurricane Center. It is weakened to wind at 105 mph.

Heavy rain from the storm, with Honduras and Nicaragua expecting maximum rainfall of 30 inches until Thursday, while El Salvador for Panama can expect 6 to 10 inches, isolated maximum 15 inches. River and flash flooding may occur soon, with dangerous storms, raising water levels by 10 to 15 feet, The National Hurricane Center said with a warning at 1 p.m.

The NHC said hurricane warnings were in effect from the border with Honduras to the coast of Nicaragua to Sandy Bay Sirby and along the coast of northeastern Honduras. There are also tropical storm warnings for Providence, San Andreas and the Bay Islands.

Although the storm hit Central America with a devastating impact, it weakened after the landslide and is expected to scatter over the region by Wednesday night.

The Colombian islands feel the first impacts

San Andres and Providence have been part of Colombia for centuries, but are geographically closer to Central America than the Colombian mainland.

At least one person has died in Providence, Duke said Monday, adding that 90% of the island’s infrastructure is affected by Iota. The local airport is also unusable due to debris.

“This is the first time a Type 5 hurricane has hit our landscape since the beginning of the record,” Duke said during a national news conference in the Colombian capital, Bogot. “We face a problem with characteristics that our country has never seen before.”

A naval ferry is scheduled to depart from Cartagena to Providence on Monday night.

Central America is still recovering from the eighth

The Red Cross said earlier this week that more than 3.6 million people across Central America had been affected by the storm on various levels.

Although the full extent of the damage from Etta will not be known for a while, the powerful storm combined with the corona virus infection will last for many years.

In Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala the storm blew for several days, causing heavy rains and flooding and landslides, which wiped the entire community off the map.

Dozens of people have gone missing in a landslide last week in the remote Guatemalan village of San Cristobal, with mud in some places as deep as 50 feet.