Storm kills four in central America as 7.0 quake hits

Al Jazeera reporter from Guatemala stated that authorities of the countries on the path of the hurricane have been preparing for days and they are hoping that this will limit the damage further.

Four people died in Costa Rica during the devastation of Hurricane Otto, whose epicenter has now moved into the Pacific Ocean, while Nicaragua’s Cardenas municipality on the Costa Rican border awoke Friday morning unable to contact the outside world, without electricity and with overflowing rivers.

Hurricane Otto, an unusually powerful late-season storm, thundered ashore Thursday on the southern Nicaraguan coast in a sparsely populated area, causing mudslides and raising fears of flash flooding as it traveled west across Central America. Since record keeping began, a hurricane has never touched down in Costa Rica.

Tropical Storm Otto left at least nine dead in Costa Rica after it battered Central America with a deluge of heavy rain.

Officials in Costa Rica ordered the evacuation of 4,000 people from its Caribbean coast and called off school nationwide for the rest of the week.

Early this week, as Otto gathered strength in the Caribbean, its outer bands of wind and rain contributed to the deaths of eight people in Panama, according to the national civil protection service.

Soon after the storm had landed on Thursday, a 7.0 magnitude quake struck 93 miles (149 km) southwest of Puerto Triunfo, El Salvador, at a depth of 6.4 miles (10.3 km), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Costa Rica’s National Emergency Commission said thousands had been affected by the storm and emergency alerts had been issued throughout the country. The storm was moving westward at a speed of 16 miles per hour, with maximum sustained winds reaching 59 miles per hour.

Bluefields, once an infamous pirate hangout, was smashed by Category 4 Hurricane Joan in 1988, a devastating storm that destroyed numerous town’s 19th century wooden houses. People often take shelter with relatives during such evacuations. It was felt also in Nicaragua s capital Managua and in Costa Rica.

Otto became the strongest hurricane on record so late in the year in the tropical Atlantic basin when its peak winds leapt from 75 miles per hour to 110 miles per hour Wednesday to Thursday.

People who was evacuated from their home arrive at the Bluefields Port before the arrival of hurricane Otto in Bluefields, Nicaragua November 23, 2016.

In Nicaragua, there were no immediate reports of deaths.

At about the same time the storm hit, a powerful natural disaster shook Nicaragua and El Salvador, briefly triggering a tsunami alert.

GAC reported flooding, landslides, falling trees, high winds and heavy rainfall as the storm approached.

Nicaragua also feared damage for impoverished farmers and to coffee crops that are nearly ready for harvest.