November 2, 2022, 10:34 AM
November 2, 2022, 10:34 AM
Strengthened into a category 1 hurricane and with high winds of 120 km / h, Lisa advanced this Wednesday towards the north of Central America, threatening Honduras and Belize above all.
According to the National Hurricane Center of the United States (CNH), around 12:00 GMT on Wednesday, Lisa was in the sea about 100 km north of the Honduran island of Roatán and 165 km from Belize, whose coasts are expected to hit the same day.
Lisa is moving at about 24 km / h to the west with maximum sustained winds of 120 km / h, corresponding to a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
The State Center for Atmospheric, Oceanographic and Seismic Studies (Cenaos) of Honduras raised the alert level to “red” for the Bay Islands and “yellow alert” for Gracias a Dios, Colón, Atlántida and Cortés, in the north. from the country.
The Honduran civil protection agency predicted that the phenomenon will intensify on Wednesday morning to begin to weaken as it approaches the coast of Belize.
The mayor of Roatan, Ronnie Mcnab, departmental head of the Bay Islands, declared “this emergency” and instructed the owners of the luxurious hotels “inform their guests of the weather condition” and remain confined for at least 36 hours.
He also suspended classes and enabled educational centers as shelters, although for now he asked the eventual evacuees to stay with family and friends.
He ordered the closure of all businesses starting this Wednesday and only left pharmacies and gas stations open.
In Belize, where Lisa is also expected to impact on Wednesday, the government declared a red alert for the entire coast and said in a statement that schools will be closed.
In addition, the Executive announced that it will enable several shelters while evaluating closing the borders.
“The phenomenon is very dangerous for us” because in Belize everything “floods quickly with a little rain” and already “a hurricane, winds and so on with a lot of rain, that is the fear of many people,” he told AFP in Belize. Jazmín Ayusola, a 21-year-old secretary.
In Guatemala, the authorities are preparing for the arrival of the cyclone that will leave rains from Wednesday, especially in the northern and central regions of the country, Rodolfo García, spokesman for the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (Conred), told reporters.
Lisa will enter the department of Petén, in northern Guatemala, as a storm on Thursday and will later downgrade to a tropical depression in Mexico, according to projections, he added.
El Salvador also maintains surveillance and 24 municipalities in different areas of the country, where places of high vulnerability to floods or landslides have been identified, are under a red alert, said the director of Civil Protection, Luis Amaya.
Lisa affects Central America almost three weeks after Julia, which hit Nicaragua as a hurricane, left fifty dead in the region, almost half of them drowned in Honduras and the rest buried by landslides in Guatemala and El Salvador, in addition to Millionaires loses.
