Tropical Depression Sara is slowly moving towards Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula after causing widespread flooding in Central America’s Honduras and Belize on Sunday resulting in at least one fatality and forcing thousands to evacuate.
According to the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC), Sara’s maximum sustained winds are at 56 kilometres per hour, with a northwesterly movement increasing to 19 kph.
As the storm advances into Quintana Roo state, the NHC warns that heavy rainfall could lead to further floods and mudslides. Currently, the storm’s center is approximately 257 kilometres southeast of Campeche, Mexico, with forecasters predicting that Sara will weaken as it travels further inland.
“Don’t take anything for granted! Secure loose objects and everything that could become a projectile,” Mexico’s national emergency services advised in a post on X.
Honduran risk management officials said more than 110,000 people had been impacted by the storm, with around 8,000 evacuated from homes and some 5,000 relocated to shelters.
It listed 1,700 local communities that had been cut off from communications as more rain continued to fall Sunday over much of the country, especially in the eastern and southern areas.
Some coffee farms in Honduras, Central America’s top producer, were also likely impacted in low-lying coastal areas in the northeast and south, but no estimates of damage were immediately available.
Over the weekend, Sara churned to the northwest where it made landfall on neighboring Belize, home to ancient ruins, beach resorts and coral reefs popular with tourists.
At a virtual press conference on Sunday, Belize Chief Meteorologist Ronald Gordon noted that some 30 centimetres of rain had hit the central coastal town of Dangriga, south of Belize City, while stressing the risk of localized flooding.
Earlier in the day, the Belizean government urged locals to hold religious services remotely, while announcing that all schools would be suspended on Monday as a precaution.
