Hurricane Iota fell into category 5 on Monday, November 16, as it hit the coastal provinces of Central America.

According to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), Iota was expected to plague northeastern Nicaragua overnight Monday through Tuesday, accompanied by winds of up to 260 km / h.

Part of the region is barely recovering from Hurricane Eta, which killed dozens of people and devastated residential areas and fields two weeks ago.

Many towns are still partly flooded.

In Panama and Guatemala, authorities evacuated people living near hills, volcanoes and waterways, fearing the potential devastation of Hurricane Iota.

"A bomb"

The World Food Program (WFP) has said millions of people urgently need food assistance after Hurricane Eta struck.

"What is approaching is a bomb," Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said at a press conference alongside his Guatemalan counterpart Alejandro Giammattei.

The two leaders described Central America as the region in the world most affected by climate change and lamented that tens of thousands of families have lost entire fields of crops to the passage of Eta.

Since the data on the subject were first recorded in 1851, this is the first time that two major hurricanes have formed in November in the Atlantic.

Iota is also the first Category 5 hurricane of the hurricane season, which comes as Central America already faces an economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus outbreak.

Experts have warned that the health situation could worsen due to climatic conditions.

With Reuters

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