(AP) – Hurricane Iota is moving across northern Nicaragua with hurricane strength winds after making landfall as a dangerous Category 4 storm along almost exactly the same stretch of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast that was devastated by an equally powerful Hurricane Eta 13 days earlier.
Iota had intensified into an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm during the day Monday, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center says it weakened slightly as it neared the coast late Monday and made landfall with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph). Eta’s torrential rains saturated the soil in the region, leaving the land new deadly landslides and floods.
