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Hurricane Katrina - Florida
Hurricane Rita - US, Cuba
Earthquake - Pakistan
Hurricane Wilma - US, Mexio, Cuba
Landslide - Philippines
Hurricane Stan - Mexico
Explosion & fire - UK
Other events
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Catastrophe Report 8
August 8th to February 23rd 2006 |
Hurricane Stan - Mexico, Central America
| Territory: |
|
Mexico, Central America |
| Region: |
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Southern and eastern Mexico, Guatemala,
El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica |
| Date: |
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1 – 5 October |
| Event: |
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Hurricane Stan and associated non-tropical rainstorms |
| Impact: |
|
The larger weather system that contained Stan
dumped up to 50 cm of rain across Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica, triggering major flash flooding
and countless landslides, particularly in mountainous terrain.
Stan itself brought winds of up to 130 km h. Guatemala bore
the brunt of the damage, with flash floods and over 900 landslides
taking 669 lives and affecting or displacing close to half a
million people across a third of the country. In Mexico, 1.5
million people were affected (including 370,000 displaced) and
15 killed. In El Salvador, 68 lives were lost, hundreds of roads
cut by landslides and countless homes in 300 communities destroyed.
70 percent of the grain harvest and 5 percent of the coffee
crop were also wiped out. Damage cost estimates for Guatemala
are at least US$400 million, while crop losses alone in El Salvador
are thought to be around US$10 million. The total death toll
for the event may be as high as 1,600. |
| Summary: |
|
Stan was a relatively weak tropical storm that
only briefly achieved hurricane status. Nevertheless, it contributed
to major damage in Mexico and Central America, and was the sixth
of seven tropical cyclones and storms to strike Mexico in the
2005 season. Stan’s structure was also unusual in that
the storm itself was embedded in a large, non-tropical rainstorm
system that produced torrential rains over southern Mexico,
Guatemala and El Salvador. Stan developed on October 1st, from
a large area of low pressure in the NW Caribbean and organised
itself into a tropical depression on the same day. Moving westwards,
the storm made landfall on the Yucatán on October 2nd
as a tropical storm, weakening to a tropical depression as it
crossed the peninsula. On reaching the Bay of Campeche to the
north, it once again became a tropical storm before achieving
hurricane status on October 4th. On the same day, Stan made
a second landfall as a category 1 hurricane south of Veracruz
on the east-central coast of Mexico, before dissipating over
the mountains. |
| Data sources: |
|
USAID
http://www.usaid.gov/locations/latin_america_caribbean/ca_flooding/
Colorado State University summary of 2005 Atlantic tropical
cyclone activity
http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts/2005/nov2005/
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| Additional sources:
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ReliefWeb
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc100?OpenForm
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