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Hurricane Iota’s devastation comes into focus in storm-weary Nicaragua

Published:Wednesday | November 18, 2020 | 2:20 PM
People watch the waters of the Rio Bermejo in the wake of Hurricane Iota in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Tuesday, November 17, 2020. Hurricane Iota tore across Nicaragua on Tuesday, hours after roaring ashore as a Category 4 storm along almost exactly the same stretch of the Caribbean coast that was recently devastated by an equally powerful hurricane. (AP Photo/Delmer Martinez)

MACIZO DE PEÑAS BLANCAS, Nicaragua (AP) — The devastation caused by Hurricane Iota became clearer Wednesday as images emerged showing piles of wind-tossed lumber that used to be homes and concrete walls that were pounded into pieces by the second Category 4 storm to blast Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast in two weeks.

The official death toll in Nicaragua stood at six, as reported by Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo.

But that number was rising as authorities surveyed the damage and communications were restored.

The victims were spread across the country, swept away by swollen rivers or buried in landslides.

Rescuers searched at the site of a landslide in northern Nicaragua, where the local government confirmed four deaths and neighbours spoke of at least 16.

A short video from the nation’s emergency management agency showed a massive bowl-shaped mountainside shrouded in clouds that collapsed.

Police blocked media access to the site on the Macizo de Peñas Blancas, a mountain in Matagalpa province, about 80 miles north of Managua.

Pedro Haslam, the Matagalpa head of the ruling Sandinista Front party, told local Channel 4 television that he could confirm four deaths, four survivors, and 15 missing in the landslide.

Rolando José Alvarez, the Roman Catholic bishop of Matagalpa, said via Twitter that priests were being sent to the area.

In the coastal city of Bilwi, a distraught Filimon Wilfred, 72, said Iota had destroyed his family’s five houses leaving its 18 members homeless.

“The hurricane came, it destroyed my house, my daughter’s house. It destroyed five houses in total,” Wilfred said.

“Where am I going to live?”

Iota arrived Monday evening with winds of 155 miles per hour, hitting nearly the same location as Hurricane Eta two weeks earlier.

By early Wednesday, Iota had dissipated over El Salvador, but the storm’s torrential rains remained a threat.

Parts of neighbouring Honduras were still under water from Eta.

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