Central America Braces For 'extremely Dangerous' Hurricane Eta

Managua, Nov 3 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Nov, 2020 ) :Hurricane Eta was hours from making landfall in Central America on Tuesday after gaining strength in the Caribbean Sea, threatening Honduras and Nicaragua with catastrophic winds and floods.

The "extremely dangerous" weather system was packing winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) an hour as it barrelled towards the Nicaraguan coast, the US National Hurricane Center said in its midnight advisory.

"Life threatening storm surge, catastrophic winds, flash flooding and landslides are expected across portions of Central America," the NHC warned.

Traveling at six miles an hour, Eta was expected to make landfall in Nicaragua on Tuesday morning before moving northwest through Honduras.

Tropical storm-force winds at Eta's leading edge were already slamming the outlying Miskito Cays late on Monday, with the winds set to increase as the hurricane rumbled closer.

"It's raining hard, with lots of wind. The sea is rough. We are afraid," Miskito teacher Kevin Lackwood, 22, told AFP.

Only the community's men remained to protect the houses, he said.

The women and children have already been evacuated from the village of some 800 people.

"If the situation becomes more dangerous," Lackwood said, the men would leave too.

Other regions across the Caribbean and Central America were also facing a mauling from Eta, as the NHC said that "flash flooding and river flooding would be possible across Jamaica, southeast Mexico, El Salvador, southern Haiti, and the Cayman Islands." "We have managed to evacuate more than 3,000 families with the active participation of our army from Caribbean communities," such as Prinzapolka and the Miskito Cays, Nicaragua's Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo said.

Those families have been moved to shelters in high, safe areas, said Murillo.

Both Nicaragua, with more than six million people, and neighboring Honduras, with more than nine million, issued red alerts over Eta's imminent arrival.

Some 100,000 people along the Nicaraguan coast, mostly in indigenous communities likely to be hit hard by the hurricane.