Hurricane Eta, one of the most powerful storms to hit Central America in years, plowed into Nicaragua on Tuesday, in an impoverished Region of its Caribbean coast, battering homes and infrastructure and threatening deadly floods.
Eta came ashore south of the port of Puerto Cabezas, pulling roofs off houses, knocking down trees and power lines and causing flooding in the region, according to the head of Nicaragua’s disaster management agency, Guillermo Gonzalez.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Eta was an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm bringing “catastrophic winds, flash flooding and landslides to Nicaragua and portions of Central America.
As it struck the coast, Eta brought potentially devastating winds of up to 225 kilometres-per-hour. However, the NHC said the storm should weaken as it moves inland.
Nicaraguan officials said there were still no reports of deaths or injuries in the country, but in Honduras a 13-year-old girl died in a mudslide in the northern city of San Pedro Sula.
