(Bluefields) The Tropical Storm Julia has become a hurricane and is expected to make landfall in Nicaragua at dawn on Sunday, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) and local authorities.
Updated yesterday at 9:52 p.m.
” Julia became a hurricane with sustained winds of 120 km / h as it passed near the islands of San Andres and Providencia “, which complete with Santa Catalina a Colombian archipelago of approximately 48,000 inhabitants in the Caribbean Sea, announced the agency. American in a press release.
Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo announced that Julia is expected to make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at dawn on Sunday between Orinoco and Laguna de Perlas, north of the town of Bluefields on the country’s southeast coast.
At 00:00 GMT, the hurricane was 200 km east of Bluefields and moving at a speed of 28 km/h, the NHC said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has declared “high alert” in San Andres.
Rainfall over the weekend could cause potentially deadly “flash floods and mudslides” in Central America, the NHC also warned.
Bluefields getting ready
In Bluefields, one of the main towns on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, fishermen were pulling their boats to safety and locals were rushing to stock up and withdraw cash.
“We have to prepare ourselves with food, a bit of everything, because we don’t know what will happen,” Javier Duarte, a cabinetmaker who prayed for the storm to deviate from its path and spare his life, told AFP. city and its 60,000 inhabitants.
The National System for the Prevention of Disasters of Nicaragua (Sinapred) put the whole country on Saturday on yellow alert and activated rescue units.
The government evacuated some 6,000 people from the Laguna de Perlas area and other threatened localities.
In Guatemala, 22 departments were placed on red alert by the civil protection services as the storm approached, which could also affect Honduras and El Salvador.
In Honduras, the government announced preventive load shedding of the main hydroelectric dam, El Cajon. Especially since the country experienced floods and evacuations at the end of September in the vicinity of San Pedro Sula, the second largest city and industrial heart of the country, and the area now most threatened by Julia.
In El Salvador, authorities have declared an orange alert for the whole country, activating rescue units and preventive evacuations in high-risk areas.
In Panama, the Civil Protection has established a yellow alert, including in the province of Darien, an area of jungle that borders Colombia and that hundreds of migrants cross daily to reach the United States.
At the end of 2020, hurricanes Eta and Iota struck Central America, leaving at least 200 dead and as many missing, and damage estimated at several million dollars.