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Residents stood amid debris outside homes in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, Nov. 17 in the aftermath of Hurricane Iota. The Category 4 storm hit the coast of Nicaragua near the border of Honduras Nov. 16, causing storm surges and flooding and further damaging buildings already wrecked by Hurricane Eta.
Residents stood amid debris outside homes in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, Nov. 17 in the aftermath of Hurricane Iota. The Category 4 storm hit the coast of Nicaragua near the border of Honduras Nov. 16, causing storm surges and flooding and further damaging buildings already wrecked by Hurricane Eta.
Photo Credit: Oswaldo Rivas | Reuters

‘It has been completely disastrous’: second hurricane hits Nicaragua

Church aid agencies were beginning to help victims of Hurricane Eta when Hurricane Iota struck Nov. 16

MEXICO CITY — A Nicaraguan priest said Hurricane Iota hit the northeastern corner of the country with more force than Hurricane Eta two weeks earlier and left communities devastated and families homeless.

“The shelters are full of evacuated people and families … who today cannot return to their homes. They’re going to go to the homes of family members or stay in the shelters,” Father Javier Pla García said in a message from the city of Puerto Cabezas.

“Our relief plans have to return to square one and we will have to reorganize,” Father Pla said, adding that he was unaware of any loss of life, although some communities were still unable to communicate and people were looking for family members.

Hurricane Iota struck Nicaragua 15 miles south of where Hurricane Eta hit the Central American country just two weeks earlier, and early reports were of disastrous situations.

The Category 4 storm hit the coast of Nicaragua near the border of Honduras around 9:40 p.m. Nov. 16, causing storm surges and flooding and further damaging buildings already wrecked by Hurricane Eta. The U.S. National Weather Service called Hurricane Iota the strongest storm of the 2020 season; Hurricane Eta was the second-strongest storm.

“It has been completely disastrous,” said Father Rodolfo French, an indigenous Miskito priest and pastor of St. Raphael the Archangel Parish in Waspam, in the region hit by the hurricanes.

He said the last report from a colleague in Puerto Cabezas, 30 miles north of where Hurricane Iota made landfall, spoke of the storm “completely destroying the church. The whole ceiling is completely on the ground. The seminary (was left) without a roof and the walls cracked. The bishop was staying there; they had him protected in a room, water was leaking in. But he is taking care of the seminarians locked in the room.”

Father French said hunger was a looming crisis as many people lost their crops of rice, yucca and plantains.

Hurricane Iota weakened to a Category 2 storm as it crossed Nicaragua. It caused flooding and damage in neighboring Honduras and was eventually expected to reach El Salvador.

Before Iota reached Central America, it pummeled the Colombian island of Providencia, where two people died and more than 30 were injured, according to government officials.

Measuring only four miles in length by 2.5 miles in width, Providencia is one of the smallest inhabited islands in the Caribbean and has a population of about 6,000 people. Colombian government officials said eight out of 10 homes in Providencia were “completely destroyed” by the hurricane, as well as the local hospital.

Before the hurricane hit, the Church’s aid agency, Caritas, and parishes again mobilized to provide shelter to populations still trying to clean up and rebuild after Hurricane Eta deluged Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.

Father Francisco Chavarría, Caritas director in Nicaragua, told Catholic News Service Iota would bring “more intense rain” and have a wider radius. Parishes and chapels were again being converted into shelters and priests were helping evacuate people, many of whose homes had their roofs blown off and had lost their modest crops, he said.

Hurricane Eta lost steam as it moved across Central America, becoming a tropical depression. But it still deluged an already saturated region, triggering mudslides, flooding and rising rivers, which washed away bridges. An estimated 200 people died throughout Central America and southern Mexico.

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