Q24N – Hurricane Julia has dissipated, but is still drenching Guatemala and El Salvador with torrential rains on Monday after it re-emerged in the Pacific following a pounding of Nicaragua.
At least 28 people were reported dead in Central America as a direct or indirect result of the storm.
Guatemala’s disaster prevention agency said five people died after a hillside collapsed on their house in Alta Verapaz province, burying them.
And in Huehuetenango province, near Mexico, nine people died, including a soldier killed while performing rescue work.
Salvadoran authorities reported the deaths of 10 people, including five soldiers, and said more than 1,000 people were evacuated, Reuters reported.
In Guatemala, eight were killed between Sunday and Monday, according to officials, while seven were injured and hundreds more were affected by the storm.
In Honduras, five victims have been confirmed including a woman who died Sunday after she was swept away by flood waters, and a four-year-old boy in a boat that capsized near the Nicaragua border on Saturday night, officials said.
Honduran authorities added that 9,200 people sought refuge in shelters.
Panama’s emergency services confirmed on Monday two deaths as a result of heavy rains, with around 300 people evacuated from communities near the country’s border with Costa Rica.
In Nicaragua, two people have been unofficially reported losing their lives as a result of Julia and leaving up to million people without power and heavy rains and floods forced the evacuations of more than 13,000 families.
Julia made landfall Sunday on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast before crossing into the Pacific Ocean.
By Monday afternoon, Julia had dissipated and what was left of the storm was moving northwest at 24 km/h over Guatemala near the border with Mexico, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).
The Miami-based NHC estimated Julia’s maximum sustained winds at about 345 km/h.
The NHC warned of life-threatening surf and rip conditions along the coasts of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, while heavy rain could still cause flash flooding.
