Hurricane Julia slams Nicaragua, menaces Central America

Hurricane Julia raked across Nicaragua, lashing the country with winds and heavy rain and bringing potentially life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides to much of Central America and southern Mexico.

Maximum sustained winds were estimated at 140 kilometers per hour when the storm made landfall near the Laguna de Perlas area, the country's weather agency said.

The fifth Atlantic hurricane of the season had weakened to a tropical storm with top sustained winds of nearly 60 miles per hour as it churned westward across Nicaragua, unleashing a dangerous storm surge along the coast, damaging homes in the country's interior and leaving some towns incommunicado.

"It's still raining, water has surrounded us, we have been without power and water since early morning, several houses are without roofs and many trees are down on the road," Julio Hernandez, a resident of Rio Blanco, in central Nicaragua, said.

The country was on high alert, with civil defence brigades helping to clear fallen trees from roads and watch for flooding in coastal towns and mountain villages. No fatalities have been reported.

But the US National Hurricane Centre warned that Julia, whose centre passed over the Central American isthmus into the eastern Pacific ocean, was still packing a punch, not just for Nicaragua but for neighbouring countries.

"Heavy rainfall with a risk of life-threatening flash floods and mudslides continues across Central America and southern Mexico through," the NHC said.