Natural catastrophes

5.9, Hurricane Felix

Nicaragua: Hurricane “Felix” killed at least 101 people on Nicaragua’s low-lying Caribbean coast and over 200 people were missing after the storm laid waste to thousands of flimsy homes. The Navy was trying to reach settlements on marshy spits of land by the sea or on quays to look for more injured or dead from Hurricane “Felix”, which crashed into the coast a day earlier as a Category 5 hurricane. The Nicaraguan army said several hundred people were unaccounted for. In the days following the hurricane, more bodies were pulled from the sea or retrieved from the country’s northern jungle. However, it was nearly impossible to determine how many people were killed by the hurricane in remote, roadless communities in Nicaragua. Officials say some of the victims were buried by relatives without informing the government and therefore not included on the loss of life toll from Hurricane Felix.