The rain-heavy remnants of Hurricane Eta have flooded homes from Panama to Guatemala as the death toll across Central America rose to 57, and aid organisations warned the flooding and mudslides were creating a slow-moving humanitarian disaster across the region.
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The storm that hit Nicaragua as a mighty Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday had become more of a vast tropical rainstorm, but it was advancing so slowly and dumping so much rain that much of Central America remained on high alert.
Forecasters said the now-tropical depression was expected to regather and head toward Cuba and possibly the Gulf of Mexico by early next week.
On Thursday afternoon, Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei said a water-soaked mountainside in the central part of the country had slid down onto the town of San Cristobal Verapaz, burying homes and leaving at least 25 dead.
Two other slides in Huehuetenango had killed at least 12 more, he said. Earlier Thursday, five others had been killed in smaller slides in Guatemala.
Guatemala's toll was on top of 13 victims in Honduras and two in Nicaragua. Panamanian authorities reported eight missing.
Eta had sustained winds of 55km/h and was moving north-northwest at 13km/h onThursday. It was centred 100km west-northwest of La Ceiba, Honduras.
In Guatemala, two children died when their home collapsed under heavy rains in the central department of Quiche, according to a statement by local firefighters.
A third person also died in Quiche, but details were not immediately available. Giammattei confirmed a fourth death in a landslide in Chinautla Wednesday night.
Honduras' National Police said six more bodies had been found, bringing that country's toll to 13.
Heavy rain was forecast to continue across Honduras through at least Thursday as Eta moves toward the northern city of San Pedro Sula.
At least eight people were reported missing after flooding and landslides in the Panama province of Chiriqui, which borders Costa Rica.
The US National Hurricane Center forecast that parts of Nicaragua and Honduras could receive 380-640mm of rain.
When what's left of the storm wobbles back into the Caribbean it will regain some strength and become a tropical storm again, forecasts show.
Eta is predicted to slowly move toward Cuba and Florida, or at least close enough to Florida for forecasters to warn of rain for South Florida in the next five to seven days.
And next week, Eta could even move into the Gulf of Mexico.
Eta will be so big, wet and messy that it doesn't have to make landfall in already rain-soaked South Florida to cause a mess.
Australian Associated Press
