San Salvador, El Salvador
Reuters
The death toll from tropical storm Julia rose to at least 14 on Monday, officials said, with victims confirmed in El Salvador and Honduras, as the weakening storm dumped heavy rainfall on a swath of Central America and southern Mexico.
Salvadoran authorities reported the deaths of nine people as of Monday morning due to Julia, including five soldiers, while at least 830 people had been evacuated.
Residents clean a mudslide in a road while Tropical Storm Julia hits with wind and rain, in San Salvador, El Salvador, on 10th October. PICTURE: Reuters/Jose Cabezas
Authorities in both El Salvador and Guatemala also cancelled classes on Monday.
In Honduras, five victims have been confirmed including a 22-year-old woman who died Sunday after she was swept away by flood waters, and a young woman and a four-year-old boy in a boat that capsized near the Nicaragua border on Saturday night, officials said.
Julia made landfall Sunday on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast before crossing into the Pacific Ocean.
On Monday, the storm was moving north-west at 24 kph along the coast of El Salvador toward Guatemala, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
The Miami-based NHC estimated that Julia’s maximum sustained winds currently stand at about 56 kph with its centre located some 56 kilometres north-east of Puerto San Jose Guatemala on the Pacific coast.
It is seen weakening on Monday evening.
But heavy rains could nevertheless cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides as it dissipates, the NHC said, with 120 to 250mm of rainfall expected in El Salvador and southern Guatemala.
Mexico’s isthmus of Tehuantepec and western Honduras are forecast to receive 75 to 150mm of rain, with less rainfall seen in Nicaragua, Honduras and northern Guatemala, according to NHC estimates.
Honduran authorities added that 9,200 people sought refuge in shelters.
In Nicaragua, Julia left a million people without power and heavy rains and floods forced the evacuations of more than 13,000 families.
Meanwhile, Venezuelans in the town of Las Tejerias, in the country’s Aragua state, on Monday waited amid a rising death toll as rescuers searched for the more than 50 missing persons who were swept away on Saturday by devastating floods following heavy rain.
Rains on Saturday night swept large tree trunks and debris from surrounding mountains into Las Tejerias, 67 kilometres south-west of Caracas, and damaging businesses and farmland.
Rescue members work following a landslide due to heavy rains, in Las Tejerias, Aragua state, Venezuela, on 10th October. PICTURE: Reuters/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria.
At least 36 people have been killed by the floods while 56 remain missing, Remigio Ceballos, vice president of citizen security area, told reporters in Las Tejerias on Monday.
Early estimates reported at least 25 dead and 52 missing.
Standing in front of what was once her two-story house, before the floods destroyed it, Jennifer Galindez waited for news of her husband, one of the people reported missing after water surged through the town.
The flood also killed her young granddaughter, she said.
“My husband was by the window. I couldn’t help him either and the water took him away,” said Galindez, 46, adding that her husband Jose Segovia, 55, suffers from severe diabetes.
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Galindez left to seek help amid the rain when she saw the water enter her home, before the flood took her too.
“The water swept me away,” she said, adding that she eventually found refuge on a platform where there was no current.
Houses, shops and other premises in Las Tejerias were fully or partially filled with mud and other debris carried by the water. The area is currently without electricity or drinking water.
On Monday, bulldozers could be seen clearing roads in Las Tejerias as the sun shone after several days of rain.
Though Galindez managed to make her way back to what had been her house – half buried in mud – on Saturday, through a hole in the wall she saw her husband was not in his bed, while her granddaughter Estefania Romero, not yet two, had drowned on the sofa.
“I haven’t been able to sleep,” Galindez said. “I can’t close my eyes because that’s what I see. I see my granddaughter, where I put her. I left her there and I couldn’t get her out.”
– With MIRCELY GUANIPA
