Tropical storm Otto moved out to sea on Friday after battering Nicaragua and Costa Rica with hurricane-force winds and torrential rains, killing at least three people and forcing thousands to evacuate.
Otto landed as a hurricane but weakened rapidly after hitting the southeastern coast of Nicaragua and became a tropical storm by early Friday, the US National Hurricane Center said, as dangerous flooding thrashed both countries.
In Costa Rica, President Luis Guillermo Solis said on Twitter that at least 3 people had died and some 2,500 people had been evacuated. He said rescue efforts continued.
Otto, the seventh Atlantic hurricane of the season, landed north of the town of San Juan de Nicaragua as a Category 2 storm on the five-rating Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, the Miami-based hurricane center said.
By Friday morning the storm was heading out to the Pacific Ocean with top sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph) and located about 115 miles (190 km) west southwest of Santa Elena, Costa Rica.
Soon after the storm had landed on Thursday, a 7.0 magnitude quake struck 93 miles (149 km) southwest of Puerto Triunfo, El Salvador, at a depth of 6.4 miles (10.3 km), the US Geological Survey said. There were no reports of major damage from the quake, but local emergency services ordered the coastal population to withdraw up to 0.6 mile (1 km) from the shore.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega declared a state of emergency because of the storm and the quake, said spokeswoman Rosario Murillo, who is also his wife.
Nicaraguan civil protection officials said the hurricane, which was moving west at 14 mph ( 22 kph), damaged homes and telephone lines but had not claimed any victims as of early Friday morning.

Source: Arab News