A compact but powerful Caribbean hurricane made landfall in Nicaragua on Thursday, clobbering the south of the country and northern neighboring Costa Rica with 175-kilometer (110-mile) winds and rains likely to trigger floods and mudslides.
Hurricane Otto, a rare late-season storm hitting further south than usual, is expected to churn slowly along the border of the two countries into Friday, wreaking destruction as it gradually loses strength.
The hurricane came ashore near San Juan de Nicaragua, also known as Greytown, south of the city of Bluefields and close to the Costa Rican border, Walter Fonseca, the operations chief for Costa Rica’s National Emergencies Commission told Teletica television.
Its position, strength and trajectory are also being monitored by the US National Hurricane Center, which warned Otto’s trailing rains “will likely result in life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.”
As it massed offshore earlier this week, its outer bands of wind and rain caused four deaths in Panama.
Thousands of people in at-risk communities along the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican coasts were evacuated ahead of the hurricane.
In Bluefields, a city of 45,000 people, and elsewhere, panic-buying cleared shops of bottled water, battery-powered lamps and plastic bags. On Wednesday, hundreds crammed onto boats to flee, while others remaining hammered metal sheeting over windows.
“This is the first time a hurricane has hit here,” said Faucia Pena, an inhabitant of Bluefields. “We are asking God to end it or send it elsewhere. Everybody is afraid.”
Some Nicaraguans further south had crossed the nearby border into Costa Rica, hoping it would be safer there, according to locals.
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