By DPA
Managua/Mexico City : Hurricane Felix lost some force over the Caribbean and has been downgraded to a category four storm but officials warned that it could yet regain strength before striking Central America.
At 21.00 GMT Monday, Felix’s centre was located 405 km east of Cabo Gracias a Dios, where it is expected to make landfall Tuesday on the Nicaragua-Honduras border, with sustained winds of 215 km per hour and even stronger gusts.
“Felix should remain a major hurricane up to its arrival in the hurricane warning area,” the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre said. “Some re-strengthening is possible prior to landfall.”
Both in Honduras and in neighbouring Nicaragua, Belize and Mexico people were preparing themselves for the approaching hurricane. If the storm does not change course, it is expected to touch land in Honduras Tuesday.
Aircraft were ready to evacuate tourists from threatened coastal areas in the Central American country, and locals are expected to be taken to emergency accommodation.
Nicaraguan Civil Defence chief Mario Perez-Cassar said Cabo Gracias a Dios is on red alert and other areas on the border to Honduras are on yellow alert.
“In those areas we have some 50,000 people at high risk, and it will be possible to evacuate about 10,000 from the most vulnerable areas,” Perez-Cassar said.
Presidents Manuel Zelaya of Honduras and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua both cut short visits to Panama to attend celebrations marking the beginning of an expansion of the Panama Canal, in order to supervise preparations for the hurricane.
Mexican authorities ordered the preventive evacuation of some 12,000 people from the border with Belize.
Guatemala – set to hold presidential elections Sunday – expects Felix to hit its territory on Wednesday and Thursday, but President Oscar Berger said he hoped Guatemalans can do their “patriotic duty and go to vote”.
Colombian authorities ordered the evacuation of beach areas in the Caribbean island San Andres in the face of hurricane Felix.
Jamaica, in the midst of elections Monday, and Grand Cayman were spared the full force of the storm.
Heavy rains of 13 to 20 cm could produce “life-threatening flash floods and mud slides”, the Miami hurricane centre warned.
The path of Felix mirrored hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands of people in Honduras and Nicaragua nine years ago.
Warm weather speeded Felix’s quick rise to a major hurricane from a tropical storm on Saturday.
Felix had already brought heavy rainfall to the Dutch Antilles islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, but passed north of the islands, sparing them significant damage.
Felix follows Dean as the second named hurricane in the region this season. Dean last month ploughed across the Lesser Antilles, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Mexico – first slamming into the Yucatan Peninsula as a strong category five storm before crossing the Gulf of Mexico and striking again as a weaker category two storm. It left 28 people dead.