MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Central American coast buffeted by storm surge

Nearly 2,000 people in towns along Central America's Pacific coast have been evacuated due to the heavy storm surge affecting the region, civil protection authorities said Tuesday.

Regional officials said that the preventive alert was being maintained in the coastal communities, but no casualties had been reported as yet.

In Honduras, some 800 residents of the affected towns have been moved to more secure locations after their homes were flooded by the waters of the Gulf of Fonseca, a civil defense official there said.

The waves in the region on Monday were registered at up to three meters (9.75 feet) in height, according to a report by the COPECO emergency preparedness panel, which coordinates preventive measures with the army, firefighters, local authorities and other emergency aid entities.

In El Salvador, the number of evacuees rose to 500 in the face of flooding caused by the storm surge and the heavy rains affecting the country since Sunday, the head of the Civil Protection Directorate, Salvador Rosales, said.

The Directorate issued a yellow alert on Monday night along the entire Salvadoran coast because of the storm surge affecting the region since Sunday. The heavy winds are originating in the South Pacific and have displaced an ocean current toward South and Central America.

Guatemalan civil protection authorities on Tuesday evacuated some 170 people living on the Pacific coast, according to the spokesman for the CONRED national disaster reduction entity, Benedicto Giron.

At some spots on Guatemala's Pacific coast, Giron said, "The waves reached seven meters (22.75 feet) in height, which caused the flooding of several homes and the partial destruction of a hotel."

In Nicaragua, at least 188 people who were affected by the heavy storm surge on Monday along the coast of a western resort area were evacuated to shelters, civil defense authorities said.

In Panama, the homes of about 12 families in the coastal town of Farallon were battered by heavy waves that have lashed the coast in the last few days, according to civil protection officials.