The president of Colombia, Gustav Petro, declared this Saturday in "maximum alert" to the Caribbean island of San Andrés (north) due to the passage of tropical cyclone Julia, which could become a hurricane.
"We are on high alert. It is highly likely that storm Julia will become a hurricane and reach San Andrés between 7 and 9 at night" (00:00 GMT AND 2:00 GMT), warned the president on Twitter.
"All hotel infrastructure must open space for shelters for vulnerable populations"Peter added.
Central America was preparing for the arrival of Julia, a tropical cyclone that moves through the Caribbean and is expected to become hurricane before making landfall on the Nicaraguan coast, according to the United States National Hurricane Center (CNH).
According to the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies of Colombia (IDEAM), Julia is 195 km from San Andrés and 180 km from Providencia, an adjacent island, which together with Santa Catalina complete an archipelago of some 48,000 inhabitants.
The cyclone moves at a speed close to 30 km per hour with sustained winds of 93 kilometers per hour, according to the entity.
"Sustained winds of 119 km/h or more are likely to occur and strong and extreme accumulated rainfall is expected that could exceed 120 mm, electrical storms, wind gusts and storm surge in the archipelago area"IDEAM warned in a bulletin.
The CNH warned that the rains during the weekend could cause "flash floods and mudslides" that threaten life in Central America.
Julia would be the second hurricane of the 2022 season in the Central American Caribbean, after Bonnie, a category two hurricane, crossed southern Nicaragua in July until it reached the Pacific, leaving at least three dead and extensive material damage.
In November 2020, the hurricane iota It impacted strongly in San Andrés and left two dead, several injured and millionaires destroyed.
Climate change produces an increase in temperature in the surface layers of the oceans, which generates more powerful hurricanes and storms with greater amounts of water, which constitute a more dangerous threat to coastal communities, according to studies by the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC) of the UN.
