“World’s deadliest hurricane” killed about 11,000 and tore country

Hurricane Mitch is regarded as one of the most deadly hurricanes of the modern era, killing over 11,000 people and causing more than $5 billion in damage.

The terrible hurricane, which primarily impacted Honduras and Nicaragua but also caused significant damage in Florida, swept away entire towns and villages, displacing millions.

“The country [of Honduras] was left like a window broken in a thousand pieces,” Aníbal Serrano, of the Fundación en Acción Comunitaria (Community Action Foundation) of Honduras, Sulaco, Yoro, wrote.

“Small and big bridges were destroyed, landslides obstructed roads, and even highways with strong pavement sunk into rivers,” he stated.

On October 22, 1998, the deadly storm began as a tropical depression but quickly evolved into a Category 5-level hurricane.

Hurricane Mitch made landfall in Honduras on October 29 and travelled through Central America before making landfall in Florida as a tropical storm on November 4.

The hurricane is reported to have killed 11,000 people, however, some estimates put the death toll closer to 20,000, making it the worst hurricane in the Western hemisphere in 200 years.

More than 2,000 people were murdered in a massive mudslide caused by the terrifying gusts in Posoltega, Nicaragua alone.

People died in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama, though the death counts were far lower.

Not only did the hurricane kill people, but it also destroyed almost 75% of Honduras’ infrastructure.

At the time, Honduras’ then-president, Carlos Flores, told the sources, “We have 75 percent… of our major infrastructure either destroyed, damaged or torn apart. Our agriculture is in shambles.”

“All of our major crops, our export products … gone.”

“This is something that happens once in a century. But this is the only country that we have, so we have to pick it up, and we will.”

In November 1998, ex-US President Jimmy Carter visited neighbouring Nicaragua and estimated that it would take 15 years to fully recover.

However, due to other natural disasters, work to restore the impacted nations is still happening 24 years later.

Immediately following the disaster, a staggering $9 billion in relief funds were pledged to assist the afflicted countries in rebuilding in the aftermath of the storm.

However, according to the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, the majority of the money never made it to the regions that needed it, and half of it was offered as loans to countries that were already in debt.

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