Felix sparks massive evacuation
People flee coastal areas of Honduras and Nicaragua as hurricane approaches.
Felix is expected to strike the northern border between Honduras and Nicaragua on Tuesday morning and then hit southern Belize and move through the Peten jungle region of Guatemala and into southern Mexico.
Desperate airlift
Emergency services sailed Miskito Indians out of vulnerable coastal areas in Honduras, and Nicaragua said it would evacuate thousands more on its side of the swampy border area.
| Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale |
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Category 2 – Winds 154-177kph Category 3 – Winds 178-209kph Category 4 – Winds 210-249kph Category 5 – Winds 249kph or higher |
On Monday aircraft shuttled hundreds of tourists from the island resorts of Honduras and Belize in a desperate airlift.
Grupo Taca Airlines provided special free flights to the mainland, quickly touching down and taking off again to pick up more tourists.
Some 1,000 people were evacuated from the Honduran island of Roatan, popular for its pristine reefs and diving resorts.
Felix, the second hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic season, was for hours a top-ranked Category 5 storm like last month’s Hurricane Dean, which killed 27 people in the Caribbean and Mexico.
Category 5 hurricanes can cause huge damage and are considered rare.
But there were four of them in the 2005 Atlantic season, including Katrina, and more of the potent storms this year could boost claims that global warming may produce stronger tropical cyclones.
Also on Monday, Tropical Storm Henriette headed across the eastern Pacific towards Mexico’s Baja California peninsula at near hurricane strength after killing six people in the resort city of Acapulco during the weekend.