Tropical Storm Beta bears down on Central America

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Rain and wind from Tropical Storm Beta lashed Caribbean islands off Nicaragua's jungle-clad coast today and was forecast to strengthen to a hurricane and dump water onto already sodden hills inland.

Strong winds and light rain swept over the idyllic Corn Islands, many of whose lobster-fishing residents are of British-West Indian descent.

"There's a lot of wind," said Naomi Gaitan, speaking by telephone from the island hotel where she works. "Since yesterday we've been without electricity."

Beta is the 23rd named tropical cyclone of an unrelenting Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season, the most active since records began 150 years ago.

It is expected to reach Nicaragua's mainland with hurricane force late on Saturday, and disaster services have begun preparing storm shelters in case of evacuations.

Colombia issued a hurricane warning for its San Andres and Providencia islands near Nicaragua, once favoured hideaways of British pirate Henry Morgan.

Residents on the islands were told to batten down the hatches as the government brought in emergency supplies.

The storm could dump up to 20 inches (50 cm) of rain over parts of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama, already sodden after weeks of rains spun off by Hurricanes Stan and Wilma.

"These rains could overflow rivers and provoke flooding and even mudslides. The soil in many areas of the country is saturated with water," Jose Ramon Salinas, head of Honduras' disaster agency, said.

Small fishing villages populated by Indian tribes and descendants of escaped African slaves are strung along the Caribbean coast of Honduras and Nicaragua.

The sun was shining in Costa Rica today, but a storm warning was in effect for most of the country. A storm warning was also in place in Panama, where moderate rain was falling over hills and coastal areas.

At 4pm EDT (9am NZT), Beta had top sustained winds near 60 mph (95 kph). It was about 60 miles (95 km) south-southeast of San Andres island and about 165 miles (265 km) east of Bluefields, Nicaragua.

The slow-moving storm was drifting to the north in the warm Caribbean, and hurricane conditions were expected over San Andres tomorrow before crashing into Nicaragua's coast over the weekend.

Weather forecasters switched to the Greek alphabet for storm names after using up their annual list of 21 names for the season with Wilma, which was at one point the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.

It ravaged Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and southern Florida and killed 28 people in Florida, the Bahamas, Haiti and Mexico.

Economically, coffee growers are among those hit by the incessant rains, which have struck plantations as they prepare for harvest.

Earlier this week, Costa Rica said between 5 and 10 per cent of its coffee crop had been lost to fungus damage.

Stan left up to 2,000 people dead or missing in Central America, destroyed as much as 6 per cent of Guatemala's coffee crop and closed roads and bridges across the region.

Farmers said they were fearful that more water could cause a collapse of the steep hillsides where much coffee is grown, or cause more leaves and beans to rot.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs through November 30.

- REUTERS