2 children killed as Hurricane Iota tears across an already battered Nicaragua

Hurricane Iota battered Nicaragua with screeching winds and pounding surf Tuesday, chasing tens of thousands of people from their homes and killing two children, along the same stretch of the Caribbean coast that was devastated by an equally powerful hurricane just two weeks ago.

The extent of the damage was unclear because much of the affected region was without electricity and phone and internet service, and strong winds hampered radio transmissions.

ButNicaragua's vice-president,Rosario Murillo, said Tuesday afternoon that a brother and sister, ages 11 and 8, had drowned in the community of La Pinuela trying to cross the swollen Solera River. There were reports of others missing in the same area.

Early reports from the coast included toppled trees and electric poles and roofs stripped from homes and businesses, said Guillermo Gonzalez, director of Nicaragua's emergency management agency. More than 40,000 people were in shelters.

A day earlier, Iota intensified into a Category 5 storm, but it weakened as it neared the coast and made landfall with maximum sustained winds of 250 km/h.The system came ashore about 45 kilometres south of the Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas, also known as Bilwi. That was just 25 kilometres south of where Hurricane Eta made landfall Nov. 3, also as a Category 4 storm.

By Tuesday evening, Iota had diminished to a tropical storm and was moving inland over northern Nicaragua and southern Honduras. It had maximum sustained winds of 80 km/hand was spinning westward at 19 km/h. The storm was forecast to cross into southern Honduras late Tuesday.

Aid agencies struggled to reach their local contacts, and the government said in a statement that at least 35 towns in the east and north had no phone service. Nicaragua's telecommunications ministry said phone and broadband provider Columbus Networks was offline because of flooding in Bilwi.

Along Honduras' remote eastern coast Tuesday, people continued evacuating from damaged and flooding homes.

Mirna Wood, vice president of the Miskito ethnic group in Honduras' far east Gracias a Dios region, was in Tegucigalpa collecting donations for her community ravaged by Eta when Iota hit.

Some 40,000 people in the area had moved to shelters from low-lying land beside rivers and the sea, but other people remained stranded near the border with Nicaragua. Some were rescued by Nicaraguan authorities, she said.

No food, no water

In her last communication with the mayor of the community of Villeda Morales late Monday, he told her Iota was hitting them hard and the community had not completely evacuated.

"We are facing an incredible emergency," Wood said. "There is no food. There is no water."

WATCH | Hurricane Iota churns throughCentral America:

Hurricane Iota slams into Central America

4 years ago

Duration 2:01

Hurricane Iota is slamming Central America, just days after Hurricane Eta came crashing through as a Category 4 storm. Iota made landfall with winds as high as 250 kilometres per hour as it hit Nicaragua.

In the community of Brus Laguna, some 500 people were in a shelter there and another 900 were being moved elsewhere, Mayor Teonela Paisano Wood said.

"We're in danger if it keeps raining," Paisano Wood said.

In mountainous Tegucigalpa, residents of low-lying, flood-prone areas were being evacuated in anticipation of Iota's rains, as were residents of hillside neighbourhoods vulnerable to landslides.

Panama reported that one person was killed and another missing in its western indigenous autonomous Ngabe Bugle area near the border with Costa Rica.

As the storm moved westward, flooding became a top concern. The Tola River topped its banks, and western Nicaragua, along the Pacific coast, was forecast to receive the most rain. Nicaragua's meteorology director, Marcio Baca, said areas where the soil was already saturated would receive 15 to 17 centimetres of additional rain.

'We will never forget this year'

Eta triggered flash floods and mudslides in parts of Central America and Mexico and killed more than 130 people.

"This hurricane is definitely worse" than Eta, Jason Bermudez, a university student from Bilwi, said as screeching winds preceded Iota's arrival. Many houses lost roofs, fences and fruit trees.

"We will never forget this year," Bermudez said.

Even before Iota hit Nicaragua, it scraped over the tiny Colombian island of Providencia, more than 250 kilometres off Nicaragua's coast. Colombian President Ivan Duque said one person was killed and 98 per centof the island's infrastructure was "affected."

Providencia is inhabited almost exclusively by the descendants of African slaves and British colonizers, who speak an English version of Creole as their native language. The island has no direct flights to the continent, but it has become an increasingly popular tourist destination thanks to its quiet beaches and rich marine life. On Tuesday, Colombian officials said they were sending a ship with 13tonnes of aid to the island.

Iota is the record 30th named storm of this year's historically busy Atlantic hurricane season. It's also the ninth storm to rapidly intensify this season, a dangerous phenomenon that is happening more often. Such activity has focused attention on climate change, which scientists say is causing wetter, stronger and more destructive storms.

Iota developed later in the season than any other Category 5 storm on record, beating a Nov. 8, 1932, Cuba hurricane, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

The official end of the hurricane season is Nov. 30.