Tropical Storm Sara weakens to tropical depression after making landfall in Belize

POTRERILLOS, Honduras (AP) — Tropical Storm Sara on Sunday weakened to a tropical depression after making landfall in Belize, where forecasters expected heavy rain to cause flash flooding and mudslides.

The storm hit Belize after drenching the northern coast of Honduras, where it stalled since Friday, swelling rivers and trapping some people at home. The U.S. National Hurricane Center expected Sara to continue to lose strength as it moved further inland Sunday over the Yucatan Peninsula.

Portions of Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala, western Nicaragua and Mexico’s state of Quintana Roo could see up to 5 inches (13 cm) of rain, with localized totals reaching 15 inches (38 cm). The conditions “will result in areas of flash flooding, perhaps significant, along with the potential of mudslides,” according to the Hurricane Center.

Meanwhile, northern Honduras was not in the clear yet. The center expected Sara to drop up to 3 inches (8 cm) of rain there, but some areas could see the totals hit 40 inches (1 meter), with “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” still possible.

Residents of the Potrerillos community, which sits in a tropical lowland in northwest Honduras, were evacuated from their homes due to the weather system, and some sought refuge at a school-turned-shelter.

On Sunday, food, plastic bags filled with clothes, appliances and other things filled the shelter as people waited to figure out what to do next after a swollen river flooded their homes.

The community, however, already faced that dilemma. It was ravaged in November 2020, when storms Eta and Iota passed through Honduras after initially making landfall in Nicaragua as powerful Category 4 hurricanes. Northern Honduras caught the worst of the storms with torrential rains that set off flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands. Eta alone was responsible for as much as 30 inches (76 cm) of rain along the northern coast.

“This flood that just happened is small compared to that of Eta and Iota... This, here, was full of people,” resident Israel Martinez said as he pointed around the shelter were he relocated after the 2020 storms and again this weekend. “For now, there are few who are sheltered here.”

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Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano contributed to this report from Mexico City.