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Source: Reuters
Tropical Storm Ida strengthened off the coast of Nicaragua as
heavy rains forced a Caribbean island to evacuate and the Central
American nation, fearing devastating mudslides, was put on
hurricane watch.
Ida, the ninth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, dumped
rain on northern Nicaragua and around 300 people fled the popular
tourist spot Corn Island to wait out the storm in government-run
shelters.
Dark clouds and rains menaced Managua, Nicaragua's capital, and the
US National Hurricane Center said a hurricane watch was in effect
for the eastern coast from the town of Bluefields up to the border
with Honduras.
"A hurricane watch means that hurricane conditions are possible
within the watch area, generally within 36 hours," the hurricane
centre said.
The storm, which is set to hit land early Thursday, had maximum
sustained winds of nearly 100 km/hr and could dump up to 64 cms of
rain on Nicaragua and eastern Honduras.
"These rains could produce life-threatening flash floods and
mudslides," the NHC's forecast said.
"A storm surge could raise water levels by as much as 3 feet above
ground level along the east coast of Nicaragua, with large and
dangerous battering waves."
The head of Nicaragua's emergency services network, Ramon Arnesto,
said up to 15,000 people along the Caribbean coast could be
affected by the storm.
Coffee producers, just starting a new harvest, are watching weather
developments closely, but say their crops in the mountainous
regions near the Honduran border are far from strong coastal
winds.
Landslides could wash out roads to coffee farms or heavy rain
could knock ripening cherries off trees, said Luis Osorio,
technical director at the national coffee council.
Tropical storm warnings were in effect for all of eastern
Nicaragua, but the government of Colombia said the nearby Caribbean
islands of San Andres and Providencia were safe from the storm for
now.
The NHC's longer-term forecast showed Ida passing over Central
America and regaining tropical storm strength by Monday off
Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
That could take it into the oil and gas-rich Gulf of
Mexico.
Forecasters said the storm's proximity to land made predicting its
long-term path and intensity more difficult than usual.
In Mexico, heavy rains in the Gulf of Mexico - unrelated to Ida -
have already killed three people in floods and closed two of the
country's main crude exporting ports.
