MANAGUA, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Nicaragua's President
Daniel Ortega declared a state of disaster Tuesday in the country's North
Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) after Hurricane Felix killed three people,
destroyed 5,400 homes and left 38,000 homeless there.
Ortega called on the international community to help
those who had lost their homes and harvests due to the massive storm.
He said water, food, construction materials, medicine and general supplies are needed.
(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Felix made landfall in northeastern Nicaragua at 6:00
a.m. local time (1200 GMT) on Tuesday, with wind speeds of 260 kph, making it a
category five hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
It has ripped off 80 percent of roofs in Bilwi, the
capital of the RAAN. In Managua, a hospital and a church were tumbled, but there
were no victims as both buildings had been evacuated.
Colonel Mario Perezcassar, head of the nation's civil
defense body said that 13,000 people had been evacuated.
Also on Tuesday, Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya
offered to send army helicopters to Nicaragua to help with the rescue efforts.
In Puerto Cabezas airport, 500 km northeast of the
capital Managua, the hurricane ripped off the roof of the main building and
brought down the communications tower.
The victims included a new born baby who had died in
a hostel in Puerto Cabezas' Morava Church, which is being used as an emergency
shelter, according to Rogelio Flores, the deputy head of Civil Defense in the
North Atlantic region.
BEIJING, Sept. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Hurricane Felix had grown
to catastrophic Category 5 storm packing winds up to 165 mph (270 kph) as it
swept through the southern Caribbean on a path toward Central America and
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, U.S. forecasters said late Sunday.
Forecasters at the hurricane center said Felix, the second
hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic storm season, was strengthening at one of the
fastest rates seen, as measured by the drop in its minimum internal pressure. Full story
