Nicaragua raises damage from Hurricane Julia to $300 million

Government of Nicaragua increased to $ 300 million damage caused ‘Julie’which on October 9 last year collapsed with force Category 1 hurricane then degrade to tropical stormThis is stated in the preliminary report published this Saturday, October 15th.

The Nicaraguan executive branch calculated last Thursday between $160 and $200 million Julia’s damage. Nonetheless National State Commission for Damage Assessment raised it to $300 million, equivalent to 2% of Nicaragua’s gross domestic product (GDP).

“We looked at the preliminary report and the numbers kept changing as we may have information flows as a result of supervision coverage, verification in various municipalities and they are increasing and we are over 300 million people. dollars, two points of GDP,” said Nicaraguan Minister of Finance and Public Credit. Ivan Acosta, to the official media.

The impact caused by Yulia was “mainly in the infrastructure sector: about 220 million distributed in energy, transport, road network, land transport, telecommunications, public infrastructure,” the minister specified.

The official explained that the preliminary report does not include damage caused by the natural phenomenon to the municipalities of El Rama, Laguna de Perlas and Bluefields in the South Caribbean Autonomous Region of Nicaragua.

Nicaragua continues to count damage and losses

Similarly, Acosta said that damage and loss in the manufacturing sector is $25.7 million, mostly in agriculture and livestock, and that they are still counting losses in the fishing and tourism sectors.
Social losses amount to $61.6 million, he explained.

The Giulia, whose wind speeds reached 140 kilometers per hour, damaged highways, the power transmission system, the distribution network system, and health and education infrastructure, according to Daniel Ortega’s administration.

According to a government report, Yulia left 1,122 kilometers of roads destroyed from the main road network, 98 affected medical centers, including the regional hospital, 4 departmental hospitals, 18 primary hospitals, 17 medical centers and 42 first-aid posts.

184 educational institutions were also damaged, including in the municipality of El Rama (southeast).

More than 20 thousand people were evacuated.

Guillermo González, co-director of the National System for Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Attention (Sinapred), assured that Giulia was affected in 123 of Nicaragua’s 153 municipalities and that about 800,000 families were affected by the cyclone, that is, about four million Nicaraguans.

Julia caused damage to 15,000 homes “to varying degrees” of which “nearly 700” were “completely destroyed” and more than 8,000 with roof damage, he said.

More than 20,000 people were evacuated during the passage of the meteorological event over Nicaragua, with no reports of human casualties, although the Nicaraguan army, local media and witnesses reported at least four casualties in Julia’s context, according to Sinapred.

The Nicaraguan authorities have already begun funding and cooperating to deal with the losses.

(According to AFP)