Hurricane Iota’s front edge reaches coast of Nicaragua

Locals move on street barely cleared from the debris of the last storm, before Hurricane Iota makes landfall in La Lima, Honduras (Delmer Martinez/AP)

The front edge of powerful Hurricane Iota began battering Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast on Monday night, threatening catastrophic damage to the same part of Central America already battered by equally strong Hurricane Eta less than two weeks ago.

Iota had intensified into an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm early in the day, but the US National Hurricane Centre said it weakened slightly by Monday night to Category 4, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph.