Hurricane Eta continues devastation, over a dozen killed in Central America

Rain-heavy remnants of Hurricane Eta have flooded houses from Panama to Guatemala. The death toll across Central America increased to at least 57 people, and support organisations predicted flooding and mudslides were forming a slow-moving humanitarian catastrophe.

The hurricane that hit Nicaragua as an intense Category-4 hurricane on Tuesday had grown more of a vast sultry rainstorm on Thursday. Still, it was pushing so gradually and dropping so much rain that much of Central America continued to be on high alert.

Forecasters declared the now-tropical change was thought to regather strength and move towards Cuba and possibly the Gulf of Mexico by the beginning of next week.

On Thursday afternoon, Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei declared a water-soaked mountainside in the central part of the nation had moved down over the town of San Cristobal Verapaz, flooding homes and resulting in the death of at least 25 dead.

Two other slides in Huehuetenango happened in the death of at least 12 more, he declared. Earlier on Thursday, five others had been killed in more diminutive declines in Guatemala.

Guatemala's death toll came on top of 13 people who disappeared in Honduras and two in Nicaragua. Panamanian officials announced eight missings.

Eta had sustained gusts of 35mph (55km/h) and was moving north-northwest at eight mph (13km/h) Thursday.

In Guatemala, two children drowned when their home crumpled under heavy rains in the central department of Quiche, according to a declaration by local firefighters.

Another person is also killed in Quiche, but circumstances were not directly available. Giammattei reinforced the fourth death in an avalanche in Chinautla on Wednesday night.

On Thursday, Giammattei announced on local radio that 60 percent of the eastward city of Puerto Barrios was overwhelmed and an extra 48 hours of rain were demanded.

In Honduras, the National Police declared six more bodies had been obtained, making that nation's toll to 13. The remains of two adults and two children were found after exhuming in a mudslide that happened Wednesday in the town of Gualala, and two boys aged eight and 11 died in another mudslide in the town of El Nispero.

Earlier, inhabitants found the body of a girl concealed in an avalanche on Wednesday in the hills outside the north coast city of Tela.

In the same area, a slide buried a home with a mother and two children inside it, according to Honduras Fire Department spokesperson Oscar Triminio.

He stated there was also a two-year-old girl killed in Santa Barbara department when floodwaters cleared away her.