Nana, turned into a hurricane, puts North America on alert

Sylvie Claire / September 3, 2020

The four countries of northern Central America - Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala - are preparing for the arrival of Nana, a tropical storm turned hurricane that was expected to hit the Belize coast on Thursday morning.

The civil protection services of the four countries especially fear the impact of heavy rains from the storm, which was approaching the coast of Honduras on Wednesday, where it caused the first floods in the Islas de la Bahia department, according to official sources. .

Before making landfall in Belize, Nana became a Category 1 hurricane (on a scale of 5) with winds reaching 120 km / h whose rains could cause flooding and flooding, according to Fancisco Argenal, chief of the meteorological service. from Honduras.

Nana is traveling at a speed of 26 km / h towards Belize, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

The Belize Disaster Reduction Service (NEMO) issued a flood warning and asked people to go to safe shelters such as schools that were requisitioned.

In Guatemala, the alert was also given by the Coordination for Disaster Reduction (Conred) which warned that the rains will be heavy and relentless from Thursday until the weekend.

The Guatemalan civil protection services are all the more concerned as the soils have already been saturated with water by heavy rains since the start of the wet season in May.

In El Salvador, the Minister of the Interior Mario Duran declared the "green alert" in anticipation of the arrival of Nana, who should however be downgraded to a "moderate to strong" storm during his passage over the country from Thursday, according to the country's authorities.

In late May and early June, storms Amanda and Cristobal had killed 30 people in El Salvador, and five in Guatemala.