It headed toward the Pacific ocean early on Friday after dumping rain on Costa Rica and Nicaragua and sparking emergency measures across a region that was also hit by a 7-magnitude earthquake.
Attention is now turning towards the risk of landslides and flooding, with Nicaragua continuing to evacuate people near the storm’s path.
Otto reached Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast on Thursday as a category two storm but immediately began fading as it crossed land, becoming a tropical storm by nightfall. It was expected to emerge over the eastern Pacific early on Friday.
Authorities in Nicaragua said the hurricane had damaged houses, but so far there were no reports of casualties. Earlier, heavy rains from the storm were blamed for three deaths in Panama.
Otto battered Nicaragua’s Corn Islands with 3.5-meter waves and damaged property but residents were all safe in refuges, said the archipelago’s mayor, Cleveland Rolando Webster.
Alicia Lampson, 21, arrived at a shelter with a group of people from the village of Monkey Point, south of Bluefields, Nicaragua. She said: “There is a lot of rain, the sea is rough and the wind is strong. We have been in danger all night, getting cold and wet.”
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