Hurricane lashes Nicaragua coast

A family walk toward a shelter in Puerto Cabezas Saturday in the Autonumus North Atlantic Region (RAAN), some 445km norhwest of Managua as the city braces for a direct hit from strengthening Hurricane Beta. PHOTO: AFP

Beta strengthened to almost a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 110 mph (175 kph), and forecasters warned it could be even stronger by the time its eye hits the jungle coast in the next few hours.

With the storm already lashing the normally sleepy fishing town of Puerto Cabezas, officials raced to find solid shelters for its residents and Miskito Indian evacuees from small fishing villages along the coast.

"It is impossible to think you could evacuate 50,000 people between now and 6 in the morning. We don't have the means to do it," President Enrique Bolanos said in a late night television and radio address. "We are doing everything humanly possible."

Defence Minister Avil Ramirez said the army has food and medicines in place but that it was impossible to evacuate this remote town and he warned many homes might not survive.

"Puerto Cabezas has simple wooden homes and, faced with these wind speeds, unfortunately no one can be prepared."

Plastic sheets were nailed over windows at one concrete shelter where 53 patients from the town's only hospital had been moved for their safety.