Tropical Storm Alma made landfall on Thursday on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast and blew through to Nicaragua, where 35,000 people were being evacuated.
The Miami-based US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said that a tropical storm warning was in effect for the Pacific Coast of Central America, including Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.
The eye of the storm was 85km west-northwest of Managua and about 280km east-south-east of San Salvador. According to the NHC report, it was moving northward at 15km an hour and was expected to turn northwest by yesterday.
PHOTO: EPA
Maximum sustained winds were near 100kph, with higher gusts.
The storm was expected to weaken overnight as it continued to move inland.
Nicaraguan civil defense boss Mario Perez-Cassar said that some 3,000 personnel had been deployed in low-lying areas, alongside military and police officers and Red Cross workers.
He said that 225 “critical points” were identified in the western provinces of Leon and Chinandega, with 23 municipalities at risk of suffering severe flooding, mudslides and flashfloods.
“We have a few hours to take away as many people as possible,” Perez-Cassar said.
He said that 25,000 people were to be evacuated first, with another 10,000 to follow.
Schools were closed on Thursday and yesterday in the provinces of Leon and Chinandega, in the southern provinces of Carazo and Rivas and in Managua.
Alma took authorities by surprise, having formed at an unusual location and time of year and surging in strength from a tropical depression to a powerful storm system within a few hours.
It dumped heavy rains across Central America.
Along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, particularly in Parrita and Quepos, 250 people suffered damage to their property and had to move into emergency shelters.
The Costa Rican soccer championship final between archrivals Alajuela and Saprissa was postponed on Thursday.
A museum in southern French city Marseille is inviting visitors to discover Europe’s relationship to the naturist lifestyle by wandering its halls in the nude. “It’s not every day you get to walk around a museum naked,” said Julie Guegnolle, 38, who was celebrating her birthday at the “Naturist Paradises” exhibition in the Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (Mucem). Once a month, visitors to Mucem can explore the history of naturism in Europe in only their shoes — a precaution not for modesty’s sake but simply to “avoid getting splinters,” said Eric Stefanut, head of French naturist organization
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
SOVEREIGNTY ‘VIOLATION’: China was possibly probing Japan’s air defense network, seeking to obtain intelligence and putting pressure on Tokyo, analysts said Japan yesterday criticized what it called the first confirmed incursion by a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace as a “serious violation” of its sovereignty, saying Beijing was becoming “increasingly active.” China’s growing economic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region and its assertiveness in territorial disputes — mostly with the Philippines — has rattled the US and its allies, and Monday’s incident represents a further heightening of tensions. Japan, Washington’s closest ally in the region, said it scrambled fighter jets after the two-minute incursion from 11:29am on Monday by the Y-9 surveillance aircraft off the Danjo Islands in the East China
Four days after last scanning in for work, a 60-year-old office worker in Arizona was found dead in a cubicle at her workplace, having never left the building during that time, authorities said. Denise Prudhomme, who worked at a Wells Fargo corporate office, was found dead in a third-floor cubicle on Aug. 20, Tempe police said. She had last scanned into the building on Aug. 16 at 7am, police said. There was no indication she scanned out of the building after that. Prudhomme worked in an underpopulated area of the building. Her cause of death had not been determined, but police said the preliminary