An unusually Tropical Storm Otto yesterday swirled over the Caribbean just off Central America, heading toward a possible landfall as a hurricane in Costa Rica, which has not seen such a storm since reliable record-keeping began in 1851.
Heavy rains from the storm were blamed for three deaths in Panama, and officials in Costa Rica ordered the evacuation of 4,000 people from its Caribbean coast.
The US National Hurricane Center said the westward-moving storm had weakened slightly overnight down to tropical storm status, with winds of 110kph.
However, it said the storm would likely recover hurricane force and make landfall later today in the border region of Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
The storm caused heavy rains in Panama as it moved roughly parallel to that nation’s northern coast.
Panamanian National Civil Protection System Director-General Jose Donderis said a landslide just west of Panama City early on Tuesday trapped nine people.
Seven were rescued, but two were pulled from the mud dead, while in the capital, a child was killed when a tree fell on a car outside a school, he said.
The boy had been waiting with his mother, but she survived the accident.
The country “faces one of the worst meteorological situations, with imminent risk,” Donderis said.
Panamanian authorities canceled school and began to release water from the locks and lakes feeding the Panama Canal.
Costa Rica’s National Emergency Commission said it was evacuating 4,000 people from the area where the storm was expected to hit and where rivers could overflow.
The effort was expected to involve evacuations by plane, boat and road in the low-lying coastal areas.
“We will not allow people to remain in at-risk areas and loss of human life,” Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis told a news conference.
He said Otto could damage the country’s important coffee and agriculture sectors.
However, the order did not extend to Costa Rica’s principal port city of Limon on the southern Caribbean coast. The city, home to about 60,000 people, was projected to feel the glancing force of the storm.
Nicaraguan National Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Attention System codirector Guillermo Gonzalez on Tuesday said that Nicaraguan Navy ships would evacuate people on Little Corn Island, a popular Nicaraguan tourist spot in the Caribbean, to shelters on Big Corn I
The storm was expected to pass near Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, today.
Heavy rain, flash flooding and mudslides will be major concerns for Central America, including Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
Early yesterday, the storm had top sustained winds of 110kph and was moving westward at 7kph, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.
Otto was centered about 375km east-northeast of Limon, Costa Rica.
When it formed, Otto was the seventh hurricane of this year’s Atlantic season. It was a late arrival in the Atlantic hurricane season, which typically runs from June to the end of November, and was hitting land unusually south.
The storm is expected to survive in some form once it enters the Pacific Ocean, but will face increasing wind shear and dry air into the weekend.
Additional reporting by agencies
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