Deaths rise to 14 in Central America after Julia passes

At least 14 people died and 8 are missing due to Julia’s passage through Central America, where there are thousands of people in shelters and evacuations continue for fear of more floods and landslides due to the rains, authorities reported Monday.

Central America, one of the areas of the world most vulnerable to natural disasters, has been on alert since last Thursday, with different countries carrying out preventive evacuations and even imposing the suspension of classes.

The authorities of El Salvador reported this Monday of at least seven deaths, five of them soldiers who were sheltering from the rain in a house when a wall collapsed in the municipality of Comasagua, in the central department of La Libertad.

The other victims died in similar circumstances in a rural area of the country, where nearly 1,000 people have been evacuated and are in 25 shelters located in different areas of the country, according to data from the Salvadoran government.

The head of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, Fernando López, said that Julia was downgraded to a tropical depression and that although “it is no longer a tropical storm, there are threats of landslides and a high probability of river overflows.”

In Guatemala, President Alejandro Giammattei declared a state of public calamity on Monday in the face of the emergency caused by Julia, which has left three people dead and seven missing.

The state of calamity empowers the Guatemalan authorities to limit different constitutional guarantees such as free movement, ordering evacuations of inhabitants and the cancellation of massive events, in the event of a national emergency.

In the last 24 hours, 1,042 people have been transferred to 13 public shelters located in the north of Guatemala, a country where classes were suspended on October 10 and 11, which could be extended.

In Honduras, the state of alert is maintained and classes are suspended due to the rains caused by Julia, which left at least three dead, one missing, hundreds of victims and thousands of evacuees.

The head of the Early Warning System, Juan José Reyes, requested this Monday the “total evacuation” of the low-lying areas of the Sula Valley, in the north of the country, due to the accumulation of water and possible overflow of rivers.

The municipality of Lima, near San Pedro Sula, is one of the regions most affected by the rains, which have forced the authorities to evacuate more than 15,000 people. Some 9,500 people remain in shelters authorized by the Government.

Julia impacted early Sunday morning as a category 1 hurricane in Nicaragua, where it was downgraded to a tropical storm causing significant damage to houses and infrastructure, which has not yet been accounted for by the Government.

The authorities have also not reported deaths, while the local press reported two.

In Panama, a woman died Friday night when her home was devastated by a landslide in the Caribbean province of Colón as a result of the rains associated with Julia, the National Civil Protection System (Sinaproc), which maintains a preventive alert in almost the entire country.

The Central American Integration System (SICA) and several of its organizations asked the international community to provide “urgent climate financing to increase resilience and implement adaptation actions.”

This will allow this region of nearly 50 million inhabitants, many of whom are poor, “to face the magnitude of the disasters caused by climate change, and accompany national and regional efforts to deal with the humanitarian, social, economic and infrastructure impacts that it causes. Tropical Storm Julia,” an official statement said.

Annually in Central America, the rains caused by hurricanes and storms, or associated with these increasingly frequent and violent phenomena, leave hundreds of deaths and millionaire losses of crops and infrastructure.

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