Hurricane Iota makes landfall in Nicaragua

Hurricane Iota began battering Nicaragua's Caribbean coast on Monday night, threatening catastrophic damage to the same part of Central America which has already damaged by Hurricane Eta less than two weeks ago. Iota had intensified into an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm early in the day, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center said it weakened slightly by Monday night to Category 4, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph. Authorities warned that Iota would probably come ashore over areas where Eta's torrential rains saturated the soil, leaving it prone to new landslides and floods, and that the storm surge could reach 15 to 20 feet above normal tides. Hurricane Eta had hit Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane, killing more than 130 people.