The Nicaraguan Government raised the damage caused by Cyclone Julia to more than 300 million dollarswhich on October 9 hit with the force of a category one hurricane and later degraded to a tropical storm, according to a preliminary report released this Saturday.
The Nicaraguan Executive had calculated last Thursday at between 160 and 200 million dollars in damage. However, the Government’s National Damage Assessment Commission raised it to 300 million dollars, about 2% of Nicaragua’s gross domestic product (GDP).
“We have been reviewing the preliminary report and the numbers have continued to move as we can have information flows as a result of the coverage of the supervision, of the verification in the different municipalities, and these have been increasing and we are above 300 million dollars, two points of GDP”, Nicaraguan Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Iván Acosta, told official media.
Last Thursday, the minister recalled that, in November 2020, Hurricanes Eta and Iota caused damages that reached 990 million dollarswhich was 8.5% of GDP.
The impact caused by Julia was “fundamentally in the infrastructure sector: approximately 220 million distributed in energy, transportation, road network, land transportation, telecommunications, public infrastructure,” said Acosta.
The official explained that the preliminary report does not include damage caused by natural phenomena in the municipalities of El RamaLaguna de Perlas and Bluefields, in the South Caribbean Autonomous Region of Nicaragua.
Losses in the productive and social sector
Likewise, he said that the damages and losses in the productive sector amount to 25.7 million dollars, fundamentally in agriculture and livestock, and that they are still quantifying the losses in the fishing and tourism sectors.
Losses in the social sector are 61.6 million dollars, he explained.
According to the Government, Julia, whose winds were measured at up to 140 kilometers per hour, damaged highways, the electrical transmission system, the distribution network system, and the infrastructure of the health and education network system.
According to the government report, Julia left 1,122 kilometers of roads destroyed from the basic road network98 affected health units, including a regional hospital, four departmental hospitals, 18 primary hospitals, 17 health centers, and 42 health posts.
Also 184 educational buildings were damaged, including those in the municipality of El Rama (southeast).
The co-director of the National System for Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Attention (Sinapred), Guillermo González, assured that Julia was felt in 123 of the 153 municipalities of Nicaraguaand that some 800,000 families were exposed to the cyclone, that is, some four million Nicaraguans.
Julia affected 15,000 homes “to varying degrees”, of which “almost 700” were totally destroyed and more than 8,000 homes with damage to their roofs, the official said.
They insist that there were no deaths.
During the passage of the meteorological phenomenon over Nicaragua, more than 20,000 people were evacuated, without reports of human damage, according to Sinapred. However, the Nicaraguan Army, Ortega mayors and official media outlets have documented the death of five people in Estelí, Boaco, Jinotega and Mulukukúin the North Caribbean.
The reports state that four of these people died after being dragged by the currents of overflowing rivers and streams, and one after being hit by a tree that fell due to strong gusts of wind.
The Nicaraguan Army indicated, in an informative note, that “they participated in the search and rescue of the lifeless body of citizen Gustavo Adolfo Talavera Cruz, 55 years old, who as a result of the heavy rains was dragged by the currents of the El Zapote ravine, in Estelí.”
On October 9, the Mayor’s Office of Jinotega —directed by the Sandinista Leónidas Centeno— reported on its social networks the death of Jesson Valerio Urbina Martínez, 24, who died after a pine tree fell on him when he was driving through the Agricris sector in Jinotega.
The official Radio Ya also reported the death of Miguel Siles, 30 years old, and reported that the body of the citizen was found on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 11, after he was reported missing on Sunday after being dragged by the currents of the Tuma River, in Mulukukú.
Regime is already looking for money
Nicaraguan authorities have already started funding and cooperation efforts to deal with losses.
The first preliminary damage report was exposed last Thursday to representatives of United Nations cooperation agencies. The presentation was in charge of representatives of institutions and ministries of the State of Nicaragua.
“We have insurance, a contingent loan with the Inter-American Development Bank, which we are asking to activate. It is a contract already made and what is coming is an evaluation, a validation that says how much the part of the insurance component should be, “said Acosta, last Thursday.
“We are making arrangements with the World Bank, with CABEI, as well as with the Government through the Foreign Ministry, with the United Nations System to be able to attend and there has been an effective response to address the situation,” he added.
