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SAN SALVADOR: A late-season hurricane ravaged parts of Central America on Sunday as floods and landslides killed at least 91 in El Salvador and thousands were left homeless in Nicaragua.
Hurricane Ida, which grew to a category two storm on Sunday, was now moving into the southern Gulf of Mexico.
Forecasters at the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre said Ida had strengthened packing top wind speeds of 160 kilometres per hour as it moved towards Mexico's Caribbean coast - a popular spot for tourists.
The tail-end of Ida coupled with a low pressure system in the Pacific caused heavy flooding in El Salvador that left 91 people dead and left some 60 others missing in El Salvador, civil defense officials said.
"We have to mourn the deaths of 91 people because of the rains," Interior Minister Humberto Centeno told reporters here.
Civil Defence chief Jorge Melendez added that "there could be more fatalities" in the eastern regions of Verapaz and Tepetitan, where rescue services have already recorded 20 deaths.
In Tepetitan, landslides and overflowing rivers carried away some 30 houses, authorities said. Some residents had agreed to evacuate the area, but a number "refused to leave their homes," according to mayor Ana Jovel.
In Verapaz, 114 kilometres southeast of the capital San Salvador, officials reported a raging torrent of mud, rocks and tree trunks ripping through a whole section of the town, burying houses and cars.
A dozen bodies of victims were hauled from the devastation to a local chapel and covered with white sheets, caked with mud, as they awaited identification by relatives.
El Salvador has been on a state of alert since Thursday as heavy rains associated with Ida began to affect the region, destroying an estimated 930 homes and leaving some 13,000 people homeless in Nicaragua.
On Saturday, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega said his government hoped to make available up to 4.4 million dollars in aid for those affected by the storm.
At 2100 GMT on Sunday, the National Hurricane Centre said Ida was about 155 kilometres west-northwest of the western tip of Cuba, moving near 17 kilometres per hour.
The centre said the storm, currently a category two on the Saffir-Simpson scale, was expected to strengthen further, before gradually weakening on Monday.
"Ida is expected to begin losing tropical characteristics in Tuesday as it nears the Gulf Coast but it could reach the coast as a tropical cyclone," the NHC said.
A hurricane watch has been issued for parts of the Yucatan Peninsula, as well as for the area east of the Mississippi-Alabama border through the north-west area of Florida.
The NHC stressed the hurricane watch does not cover the city of New Orleans, which was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.
Forecasters warned Ida could dump between three to five inches of rain in the Yucatan and western Cuba, with up to eight inches in some places, as well as storm surges and "large and destructive waves."
This year, the Pacific's El Nino ocean-warming phenomenon has resulted in an especially calm Atlantic hurricane season - a welcome respite for Caribbean and southeastern US residents still smarting from a 2008 pounding.
There have only been two other hurricanes in the 2009 Atlantic season, which runs from June 1 to late November 30, but normally peaks in September and October. - AFP/de
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