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Deadly hurricanes lash Central America, Mexico
2007-09-06
Nicaragua and Mexico launched major relief operations Thursday after two hurricanes that killed at least 40 people with the toll expected to rise. While Nicaragua surveyed the destruction left by Hurricane Felix that struck the Central American country Tuesday, Mexico's Pacific coast was hit Wednesday by Hurricane Henriette, which left two people dead. An aircraft with tonnes of food, blankets and medication landed late Wednesday in Bilwi, the capital of Nicaragua's impoverished North Atlantic Autonomous Region of 200,000 people. A Venezuelan cargo plane was due to arrive Thursday. The World Food Program delivered 4.5 tonnes of aid to the Nicaraguan government, while neighboring El Salvador and Honduras also sent assistance. The population worst hit by the storm, which has since dissipated, was without help for 24 hours as resident live in a remote jungle region. Some 50,000 people were displaced by Felix. Jazmina Lagos cried over the body of her mother, Antonia, who died when her fragile home in the nearby village of Betania crumbled under the force of Felix's 260 kilometers (160 miles) per hour winds. "What a tragedy, what a horrible day," wailed Lagos, whose village of 1,000 Miskito Indians was flooded. Search teams deploying along the coast feared they would find more death and destruction as they made their way to isolated communities whose wooden shacks offered no protection from the hurricane's powerful winds. "There are 38 dead," national disaster authority chief Ramon Arnesto Soza told local radio, adding that the number was expected to rise. Some 120 people who live in the region inhabited by Miskitos Indians are missing, he said. "We must speed up (search) efforts," said Reynaldo Francis, governor of the autonomous region. "We are getting information of bodies floating in the water." The storm conjured memories of Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands and wreaked untold damage in Nicaragua and Honduras in 1998. Residents of the Honduras capital Tegucigalpa heaved a sigh of relief as Felix, which weakened into a tropical depression, spared the city. But authorities remained concerned about floods and mudslides. Thousands of people were evacuated in the north of the country as rivers rose, threatening to burst their banks. On Wednesday morning, authorities reported 123 damaged homes and 10 landslides in Honduras. Tuesday's Felix landfall marked the first time on record that two Atlantic hurricanes hit land at the topmost category five in the same year, after Hurricane Dean barreled ashore in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula two weeks ago. Mexico was hit by a new hurricane this week, this time on its Pacific coast as Henriette stormed across the Baja California peninsula Tuesday and the mainland Wednesday. The category one hurricane claimed the lives of two men as it hit the northwestern town of Guaymas with winds up to 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour before weakening into a tropical storm, local authorities said.
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