Storm Otto kills four in Costa Rica

Tropical storm Otto has killed at least four people and forced thousands to evacuate after battering Nicaragua and Costa Rica with hurricane-force winds and torrential rains, then moved out into the Pacific Ocean.

Otto hit the coast on Thursday from the Atlantic as a hurricane in southeastern Nicaragua, but weakened rapidly and became a tropical storm by early Friday as it drifted deeper into the Pacific, the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.

In Costa Rica, the national emergency commission (CNE) reported that two men and two women were killed by the storm, which dumped over a month's worth of rain in some areas near the Nicaraguan border. Some 255 communities were affected, with over 5500 people housed in 50 shelters across the country, the CNE said.

"After a fateful night in parts of the country, we're starting to realise the scale of the tragedy that hit us," Costa Rican President Luis Guillmero Solis told a news



conference.

Nevertheless, in Nicaragua, there were no immediate reports of deaths. In the port of Bluefields, north of where the storm landed, there was very limited damage.

"It was a relief for us," said William Salmeron, a 39-year-old businessman in the city. "I wasn't scared, just the normal fear you need to have with hurricanes."

Otto, the seventh Atlantic hurricane of the season, landed north of the town of San Juan de Nicaragua as a Category 2 storm, the Miami-based NHC said.

By Friday morning Otto was heading out to the Pacific with top sustained winds of 105km/h and churning about 395km south-southeast of San Salvador.

In a freakish coincidence, soon after Otto landed on Thursday, a 7.0-magnitude quake struck149km southwest of Puerto Triunfo, El Salvador.

There were no reports of major damage from the quake, which along with Otto, prompted Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to declare a state of emergency.