Monday, 03 September 2007 23:38
Hurricane Felix Headed for Land
Felix,
a highly dangerous Category 4 storm, due to make landfall on Tuesday morning,
is charging toward Nicaragua and Honduras with top sustained winds of 135 mph
(215 kph). The storm is provoking fears of a repeat of Hurricane
Mitch, which killed some 10,000 people in Central America in 1998. The most
important thing is that people pay heed to the call for evacuation so that we
don't have to count bodies later," said Marco Burgos, head of Honduras'
civil protection agency.
Hundreds
of tourists flew to the Honduran mainland from beach and diving resorts on the
Bay Islands. Emergency services sailed Miskito Indians out of vulnerable,
sparsely populated, coastal areas in Honduras, and Nicaragua said it would
evacuate thousands more on its side of the swampy border area, dotted with
lagoons and crocodile-infested rivers. The Miskitos, who
traditionally fish for turtles, formed a British protectorate until the 19th
century. More than 35,000 of them live in Honduras, and over 100,000 in
Nicaragua. Felix, the second hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic season, had been a
top-ranked Category 5 storm like last month's Hurricane Dean, which killed 27
people in the Caribbean and Mexico.
