Desperate families searched through the early morning hours thursday for scores of missing Nicaraguans on the Caibbean coast where Hurricane Felix blew away villages, flooded rivers and killed at least 18 people.
About 150 Miskito Indians who were adrift on the ocean clinging to buoys, canoesand slabs of wood were rescued by authorities, said Honduran Federal Congresswoman Carolina Echeverria, who represents the northeastern orovince of Gracias a Dios, on the Nicaraguan border.
Nine of those rescued were in seriouscondition and were being attended by five Honduran doctors, Echeverria said.
"We believe there are many othersout there floating on the sea,"She said. Far to the northwest, meanwhile, Henriette plowed into Mexico for the second time in two days, making landfall shortly before 9 p.m. EDT near the port city of Guaymas with top sustained winds of 75 miles per hour. Seven deaths were reported from the Pacific storm,which hit Baja California on Tuesday.
Felix came ashore Tuesday in Nicaragua as a Category 5 hurricane packing 160 mph winds and heavy rains that caused mudslides, destroyed homes, uprooted trees and devastated villages.
Wednesday night, Nicaraguan Civil Defence Department spokes man Alvaro Rivas said the confirmed death toll had doubled to 18. Defense officials said president Daniel Ortega had put the toll at 21. There was no immediate explanation for the disrepancy.
Rivas also said at least 60 people were missing: more than 50 in the Matagaipa province in the month and another 10 around hard-hit city of Puerto Cabezas.
The dead included a man who drowned when his boat capsizes, a woman killed when a tree fell on her house and a newborn who died shortly after birth because her mother couldn"t get medical attention.
Among the missing were four fishermen whose small sailboat sank as Felix"s center passed overhead. A survivor Fernando Pereira, 24, said he clung to a piece of wood for 12 hours, despite a dislocated shoulder, and washed ashore at the village of Sandy Bay only hours after Felix made landfall there. He hadn"t seen his friends since.