Unnamed storm plays havoc in El Salvador

A devastating storm rocked El Salvador over the weekend but astonishingly it wasn't the hurricane that was roaring around that area. In fact this particular storm was an unidentified and unnamed one, but had the capacity to cause mass destruction with bursting river banks, collapsed hillside and heavy rains that killed at least 140 people. As Hurricane Ida was hovering along the Atlantic coast of central America late last week, the tropical storm disturbed Nicaragua and Honduras but El Salvador was untouched. Slowly a relatively low pressure cell struck El Salvador. It drifted violently across the mountainous countryside from Saturday evening until late Sunday, bringing along with it huge quantities of rain and destruction far worse than the disaster-prone country had seen in more than a decade.  
As many as 1,500 houses have been damaged, said Edin Martinez, vice minister of housing. Many of the dead were children. The vast scale destruction made it evident that Central American villages, often built on river banks and bases of mountains were prone to devastation considering the increase in the number of storms and cyclones. Salvadoran forecasters were least worried and did not put out a warning for Ida and the unnamed storm late last week, advising residents that mudslides and sudden surges along river channels were possible. Still, the heavy rainfall took everybody by surprise.