Attachments
A. SITUATION ANALYSIS
Description of the disaster
The extremely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was an above-normal season, according to the NOAA National Hurricane Center (NHC). In total, the 2020 season produced 30 named storms (top winds of 39 mph or greater), of which 14 became hurricanes (top winds of 74 mph or greater), including seven major hurricanes (top winds of 111 mph or greater). This is the most storms on record, surpassing the 28 from 2005, and the second highest number of hurricanes on record.
On 3 November 2020, Hurricane Eta made landfall in Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane, causing landslides and floods that displaced thousands of people and left dozens dead or missing in Central America and parts of the Caribbean.
The extreme rainfall associated with Eta2 caused catastrophic flash flooding, river flooding, and deadly landslides across the region. Flooding or landslides contributed to at least 74 deaths in Honduras, 60 in Guatemala, 27 in Mexico, and 2 in both Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Fortunately, there was no reported loss of life near the landfall location on the coast of north-eastern Nicaragua, although Eta caused very severe damage in that area. The United Nations (UN) estimated that 4.9 million people were adversely impacted by the torrential rainfall, strong winds, and storm surge produced by Eta. There was an estimated $6.8 billion (USD) worth of total damage from Eta in Central America, according to the Global Catastrophe Recap produced by Aon. Unfortunately, this devastation was soon to be followed by additional disastrous impacts from Hurricane Iota just two weeks later.
Hurricane Iota worsened the situation in areas already affected by Eta and significantly expanded the impact to other regions in Nicaragua and other Central American countries. Hurricane Iota made landfall with an intensity of 125 kt around 0340 UTC 17 November along the eastern coast of Nicaragua about 20 mi south-south-west of Puerto Cabezas near the village of Haulover. Shortly after landfall, Iota turned due west and rapidly weakened over the mountainous terrain of Nicaragua, becoming a tropical storm by 1800 UTC that day while located over western Nicaragua near the Honduras-Nicaragua border. Further weakening followed as the cyclone moved across the rugged terrain of southern Honduras early on 18 November and become a tropical depression by 1200 UTC 18 November when the broad system was moving across east-central El Salvador. Iota dissipated over western El Salvador 6 hours later.
These two hurricanes affected more than 7.5 million people in Central America. The governments of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua declared states of emergency in at-risk departments and requested humanitarian and financial aid, elevating it to an official international-level request to intensify emergency response actions.
Guatemala
According to the CEPAL report "Evaluation of the effects and impacts of tropical depressions Eta and Iota in Guatemala", these two hurricanes caused flooding and dozens of catastrophic mudslides and mudflows. The National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (CONRED by its Spanish acronym) reported that 16 of 22 departments were affected by both events, with damage concentrated in Alta Verapaz, Izabal, Quiché, Huehuetenango, Petén, Zacapa and Chiquimula, where around 5 million people live. In the departments of Izabal, Petén, Alta Verapaz and Quiché, an area of approximately 530 km2 was flooded, where some 33,000 people were directly exposed.
The landslides occurred along a wide swath of the mountainous zone of Huehuetenango, Quiché and Alta Verapaz, as well as in steeply sloping areas of Chiquimula. Data from CONRED's Emergency or Disaster Information Management System (SISMICEDE by its Spanish acronym) showed some 425 landslides and mudflows. CONRED reported 60 people killed, 30 injured, at least 100 people missing, some 60,000 houses with moderate to severe damage and a large amount of national and community infrastructure affected and damaged, including roads, bridges, buildings, schools and health infrastructure.
In the department of Izabal, flooding caused by Eta, due to the overflowing of the Motagua river, mainly affected the municipalities of Los Amates, Morales, and Puerto Barrios. Some 150 km2 were flooded in these three municipalities, with direct exposure of some 8,000 people. The overflowing water, which in some places reached a height of 2.5 metres, destroyed houses and their contents (furniture, electrical appliances, clothes, kitchen utensils, among others), flooded streets and community spaces with mud and stones, contaminated artesian wells and destroyed community water systems, causing considerable damage to the community and municipal road infrastructure.
In the case of Alta Verapaz, some floods were caused by large rivers and their tributaries while others, mainly between Cobán and Chisec and in San Pedro Carchá, were caused by a combination of surface and underground runoff, creating huge lagoons that flooded at least 20 communities. These communities reported that damage not only to homes, livelihoods, and infrastructure but also to crops, livestock, health posts, schools, and road networks.
This same report shows the tropical storms caused losses, damages, and additional costs throughout the country in the order of 6 billion GTQ (about 750 million CHF).
Honduras
Hurricane Iota affected communities in the Sula Valley in northern Honduras as well as the departments of Copán,
Choluteca, and Comayagua and compounded the damage inflicted by storm Eta in the departments of Cortés, Yoro, Atlántida, Santa Bárbara, Olancho, and Colón.
The Standing Committee on Contingencies (COPECO by its Spanish acronym) reported6 that approximately 4.7 million people were affected by the emergency. More than one million were evacuated, over 93,000 were transferred to collective centres and more than a hundred died because of the floods. Some 1,000 homes were destroyed, more than 6,000 were damaged and more than 88,000 were affected.
According to the CEPAL report "Evaluation of the effects and impacts of tropical depressions Eta and Iota in Honduras” the total costs caused by Eta and Iota are estimated to have been approximately 52,099 million HNL (over 2 billion CHF).
In the health sector, Eta and Iota and the resulting floods and rains caused damage mainly to the infrastructure of primary health care units, affecting three types of health facilities, Primary Health Care Unit (UAPS), Integrated Health Centres (CIS), and polyclinics, affecting 388 health buildings, corresponding to 29.2% of the national total (388/1326). In the education sector, 534 schools were affected to some degree, representing 3% of the national total. In addition, another 620 were used as temporary shelters.
Damage to housing infrastructure was estimated to affect 92,646 households at a total cost of approximately HNL 5,502 million. This cost included the replacement of physical assets, while the cost of household goods, such as kitchen items, bedding, and electrical appliances, amounted to HNL 315 million. In the agricultural sector, damage was reported in more than 16 departments of Honduras, involving more than 42 agricultural and livestock economic activities with different levels of damage by zone and economic activity. Ninety per cent of the damage was recorded in the agricultural sector and 10 per cent in the livestock sector. The agricultural crops with the greatest damage were coffee (49%), bananas (27%), plantains (7%), and sugar cane (5%). These four agricultural activities represent 88% of the total estimated agricultural damage caused by Eta and Iota.
Nicaragua
Hurricane Eta made landfall on Nicaragua's northern Caribbean coast on 3 November 2020 as a category 4 hurricane packing 240-km/hr winds, pummelling the Wawa Bar community to the southwest of Puerto Cabezas, Bilwi for more than 30 hours. After Eta, the National System for Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Care (SINAPRED by its Spanish acronym) estimated that more than two million people were exposed to this storm.
As a preventive measure, SINAPRED and other response mechanisms in the country, including the Nicaraguan Red Cross (NRC), evacuated almost 70,000 people and opened 325 collective centres. It declared a red alert for the Caribbean region and a yellow alert for the departments of Wiwili, Jinotega, Nueva Segovia, Matagalpa and Chinandega. The Pacific region was also affected by torrential rains that caused landslides, which led to having to activate more than 300 collective centres and host households to house and take in families.
Hurricane Iota made landfall in Nicaragua as a category 5 hurricane on 16 November, packing winds of up to 260 km/h and hitting the community of Halouver (350 families, approximately 1,750 people, mostly Miskito indigenous people) 45 kilometres south of Puerto Cabezas.
As a result, the northern Caribbean region was left incommunicado, with no telephone and internet service, with no electricity, and with no drinking water supply service. Puerto Cabezas was severely damaged. Housing and docks were destroyed. The temporary hospital that had been set up had to be evacuated to the regional government's headquarters as the building began to cave in because of the strong winds, and the damage suffered by the Bello Amanecer regional hospital was even more severe.
Iota, downgraded to a tropical storm, then went on to hit the Nicaraguan Pacific region, leaving in its wake destroyed bridges and homes, landslides, fallen trees, and flooding in the departments of Rivas, Managua, Carazo, Jinotega, Nueva Segovia, and Wiwili.
The official government report issued on 24 November 2020 following Iota indicated that some three million people were affected by both hurricanes and estimated the losses due to damages caused in 56 municipalities at USD 742,671,000.