Tropical Storm Alma made landfall on Thursday on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast and blew through to Nicaragua, where 35,000 people were being evacuated.
The Miami-based US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said that a tropical storm warning was in effect for the Pacific Coast of Central America, including Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.
The eye of the storm was 85km west-northwest of Managua and about 280km east-south-east of San Salvador. According to the NHC report, it was moving northward at 15km an hour and was expected to turn northwest by yesterday.
PHOTO: EPA
Maximum sustained winds were near 100kph, with higher gusts.
The storm was expected to weaken overnight as it continued to move inland.
Nicaraguan civil defense boss Mario Perez-Cassar said that some 3,000 personnel had been deployed in low-lying areas, alongside military and police officers and Red Cross workers.
He said that 225 “critical points” were identified in the western provinces of Leon and Chinandega, with 23 municipalities at risk of suffering severe flooding, mudslides and flashfloods.
“We have a few hours to take away as many people as possible,” Perez-Cassar said.
He said that 25,000 people were to be evacuated first, with another 10,000 to follow.
Schools were closed on Thursday and yesterday in the provinces of Leon and Chinandega, in the southern provinces of Carazo and Rivas and in Managua.
Alma took authorities by surprise, having formed at an unusual location and time of year and surging in strength from a tropical depression to a powerful storm system within a few hours.
It dumped heavy rains across Central America.
Along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, particularly in Parrita and Quepos, 250 people suffered damage to their property and had to move into emergency shelters.
The Costa Rican soccer championship final between archrivals Alajuela and Saprissa was postponed on Thursday.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS