Eta Advances Towards Cuba After Devastation in Central America

The phenomenon made landfall as a category 4 storm on Tuesday in Puerto Cabezas in northern Nicaragua

The Eta tropical depression is moving toward Cuba after leaving at least a hundred dead and thousands evacuated in Central America, while in the largest island of the Antilles, authorities reported that the phenomenon could turn into a tropical storm in the next few hours.

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The phenomenon that made landfall as a category 4 on Tuesday at Puerto Cabezas in northern Nicaragua left Honduras Thursday night for the Caribbean.

As the climate situation in Central American countries regularizes after the passage of Eta, the destruction left by the hurricane in rural villages in the region is evident, while thousands of people are waiting for help.

The meteorological phenomenon that hit Central America since last Tuesday until it became a tropical depression affected crops, telecommunication routes such as highways, bridges and rural roads, as well as the power lines, particularly in rural areas.

The relief corps are barely reaching the places most affected by the passage of the hurricane, and at the same time, the local agencies to deal with the contigency report thousands of people rescued.

Panama 
In western Panama, the provinces of Chiriqui, Bocas del Toro, Veraguas and the Ngäbe Bugle region were the hardest hit by the intense rains that fell in the area causing severe flooding. 

The number of deaths has been counted as eight, and at least 68 people remain missing, while there has been significant material damage due to the loss of crops, landslides, mudslides, and destroyed roads, among other recorded damages.

Costa Rica
The National Emergency Commission reported that 1,361 people remain in 38 shelters set up in communities along the Pacific coast, and that municipal emergency committees have dealt with more than 600 reports of flooding and 304 landslides on roads so far this week.

Authorities reported Thursday the death of a 71-year-old American and his 51-year-old Costa Rican wife, who died in a landslide in Concepción de Agua Buena, in Coto Brus, in the south of the country.

El Salvador 
El Salvador is on maximum alert due to the rains generated by Eta, which led the authorities to preventively evacuate 1,193 people, who were placed in 24 shelters, while the damage recorded on Thursday was fortunately slight.

Honduras 
Areas of crops, homes, roads, bridges and other infrastructure were destroyed in this nation that began to suffer the effects of Eta on Wednesday from Nicaragua already as a tropical depression, moving now with sustained winds of 45 kilometers per hour.

Relief workers reported at least 27 deaths so far, most in mudslides or washed away. As of Thursday, there were 21 deaths, but today a family of six people was reportedly buried after giving up their home in the village of Cerro Verde in the municipality of Belén Gualcho, in the west.

Nicaragua
Remote indigenous communities such as Wawa Bar and Lamlaya were totally devastated, while in Bilwi, trees and poles fell, the baseball stadium collapsed, and homes and churches got their roofs blown off. 

The Nicaraguan government reported that more than 30,000 people who were evacuated to shelters have begun to return to their homes.

Guatemala 
The authorities estimate that at least 100 people were killed by an avalanche that buried about 150 houses in the village of Quejá, located in the north of the country, whose remote location, added to the rain and landslides, has made it difficult for rescue workers to arrive.

In the Central American country there are eight confirmed dead and 18 missing. Thousands of people were isolated this Friday waiting for help in several departments in the north of the country, such as Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz and Izabal.

Cuba
In the next 12 to 24 hours, the weather phenomenon will continue on a course close to the northeast, increasing its movement speed. 

With this course and speed, it will approach the seas in the south of Cuba on Saturday night, with rains that can be strong and intense in a great part of the archipelago, even in areas far from the center of the island.