Nicaragua/Honduras Hurricane Relief
FTH staff kept a watchful eye on the storm over Labor Day weekend and began mobilizing aid early Tuesday morning.
(CNN) Reports -- "Rescuers searched for survivors of Hurricane Felix on Thursday as the death toll from the powerful storm rose to nearly 100, according to The Associated Press. Residents cope Thursday with the damage from Hurricane Felix in La Pajara, northern Nicaragua. Ninety-eight Nicaraguans were killed, Abelino Cox told the AP. Cox is the spokesman for the Regional Emergency Committee in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.
Felix barreled ashore about 7:45 a.m. ET Tuesday near the Honduras-Nicaragua border as a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds, the most intense classification on the Saffir-Simpson scale used by meteorologists.
Jorge Ramon Arnesto Soza, executive secretary of the National System for the Prevention, Mitigation and Attention of Disasters, said the death toll was likely to increase as reports came in from remote areas.
Survivors of the storm struggled Thursday. An AP photographer in an isolated Nicaraguan village saw residents cracking coconuts to drink the milk because they had nothing else.
In Honduras, meanwhile, in addition to the 52 Miskito Indian survivors, an undetermined number of others aboard a boat were rescued, Echeverria said.
About 11,000 Miskito Indians in the isolated region did not evacuate before the storm. Honduran officials had trouble getting to the remote region but did manage to evacuate more than 3,100, according to regional army commander Col. Carlos Edgar Mejia of the 115th Infantry Brigade.
The United Nations' World Food Program said in a statement that the hurricane ripped the roof off a Nicaragua hotel where staff members were staying and destroyed a food aid warehouse.
Nearly 80 percent of Nicaraguans live below the poverty level, many in ill-constructed homes.Felix was the second Category 5 storm to hit the region this year, marking the first recorded instance of two such storms making landfall in a single hurricane season."
Feed The Hungry responds
At present more than 175 tons (350,000 pounds) of needed food aid is being shipped to in-country ministry partners along the Honduran coast and in north-eastern Nicaragua.
"We're thankful that significant supplies were pre-positioned in Texas, ready for shipment", said Stefan Radelich, Director of Feed The Hungry. "Just days before Hurricane Felix came across the Sea of Cortez, we also received a large supply of cornmeal—a major food staple for Central America—from our good friends at Wilson Corn Products in Rochester, Indiana."
The first shipment of supplies will arrive on September 12th to aid the thousands of affected residents as they return to their evacuated towns, cities, and homelands.
To help the survivors and families in Honduras and Nicaragua affected by Hurricane Felix, click here.