Tropical storm Gamma weakens after lashing Honduras
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-21 09:39

Tropical Storm Gamma weakened into a tropical depression Sunday and drifted off Honduras after torrential downpours lashed the Central American coast, killing 12 people — including a young family of four.

Gamma, the 24th named storm of an already record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season, was expected to dissipate over the next day and was likely to miss Florida altogether. But the storm was expected to bring steady rain to northern Honduras and central Cuba as it becomes less organized, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Gamma's maximum sustained winds decreased to 35 mph — below the 39 mph to be considered a tropical storm, the hurricane center said. Its center was located about 85 miles north of the Honduran city of Limon and it was meandering north.

Residents look at a damaged bridge over Monga river in Saba, northern Honduras November 18, 2005. [Reuters]

Forecasters said Gamma's path over the next three days would carry it south of Jamaica by Wednesday, but forecasters said it might not even be a tropical cyclone by then.

Gamma had 45 mph winds and torrential downpours when it killed nine Hondurans and injured four others. Authorities were searching for 15 people reported missing.

The government said the storm destroyed 48 homes, damaged 264 and forced more than 11,000 people to evacuate.

"The losses are high, and they pain and sadden us, but the worst could come when we learn the full magnitude of the tragedy," said Hugo Arevalo, national disaster response coordinator.

Helicopters from a U.S. military base joined Honduran aircraft in ferrying aid to hard-hit areas, but authorities cautioned that dozens of coastal communities remained cut off. Among them were towns in the Gracias a Dios region near the Nicaraguan border.

"We haven't gotten any humanitarian aid to them because the weather conditions won't let military helicopters land," Arevalo said, adding that waters from the swollen Tinto and Negro rivers have divided the town of Palacios in Gracias a Dios.

A mudslide swept down on a home in Puerto Cortes, Honduras' main Caribbean port, killing a couple in their 20s and their two toddlers.

An aerial view of a flooded district in La Lima, Honduras November 20, 2005. [Reuters]

Five people were also killed in the northern town of El Progreso, where Mayor Nelly Soliman said flooding was extensive.

President Ricardo Maduro said that Spain, Japan, Great Britain, Colombia and the United States had pledged to send aid.

"I want to be clear," he said, "there is money available and we won't skimp on aid for our countrymen."

In Belize, search teams blamed bad weather associated with Gamma for the crash of a private plane belonging to Blancaneaux Lodge, an exclusive jungle resort owned by the filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

The crash killed the Belizean pilot Rene Ram and two guests, said Kathleen Talbert, a representative for Coppola. The Belizean military on Sunday identified the two as U.S. citizens, but offered no further details.

The plane fell into a ravine near another ranch.

Gamma extended the Atlantic's record-breaking storm season. The previous record of 21 named storms had stood since 1933.