5/8/2023 0 Comments Hurricane iota 2020![]() ![]() In addition, according to the regional ministries of agriculture, much of the postrera bean production, which is highly susceptible to moisture damage, has been lost. As a result, due to both decreased labor demand and increased constraints to transportation, local and seasonal migrant households will suffer an overall decline in household income. In addition, road infrastructure was damaged. Over 200,000 hectares of staple food and cash crops were damaged in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, including beans, bananas, cassava, cacao, coffee, fruits, vegetables, cardamom, oil palm, sugar cane, and fodder. The hurricanes made landfall in Central America during the peak of the agricultural labor season, which occurs between October and February, and during the postrera harvest, which occurs in November. Needs are likely to peak at over 4.0 million people in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) in August 2021. Since the hurricanes hit the region at a time of year when poor and very poor households typically earn most of their annual income, and these income-earning opportunities have been undermined, atypically high needs are expected to persist through the 2021 lean season. While damages from the second hurricane, Iota, are still being evaluated, FEWS NET estimates at least 3.5 million people are currently in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) throughout Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, and a scale-up in food assistance is urgently required to meet these needs. Although local governments and humanitarian actors are responding with assistance, the need is expected to surpass the current capacity to respond. Furthermore, many roads and bridges were either destroyed or temporarily made inaccessible, altering the food commodity supply flow and driving market functioning to below normal levels. The storms also caused extensive damage to crops and farmland, livestock and fishing assets, and infrastructure, which will result in the reduction of critical food and income sources in both the short and medium term. Overall, the hurricanes directly affected more than 6 million people, causing 235 deaths, displacing over 590,000 people, and isolating thousands of people. The storms brought up to 1,000 mm of rain in the worst affected areas, including northern and eastern Guatemala, northeastern Nicaragua, and northern Honduras, and up to 200 mm in eastern and western El Salvador. In November 2020, Central America was hit by two Category 4 hurricanes, Eta and Iota, within two weeks, in a context where poor and very poor households’ income sources were already diminished due to COVID-19 and multiple years of poor rainfall in some areas. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |