Imago Garage

Rua do Vale de Santo António 50A, 1170-381 Lisboa

27 . 09 . 2024 → 26 . 10 . 2024

wednesday - saturday → 02:30 pm – 06:30 pm

Artist

Nigel Dickinson

Hurricane Mitch was the second deadliest Atlantic Hurricane on record. In 1988 Hurricane Mitch caused about 12,000 fatalities across Central America, with cataclysmic flooding across Honduras and Nicaragua. It was the deadliest hurricane in Central American history. Mitch formed in the Caribbean Sea on October 22nd, strengthening to a category 5 status, the highest possible rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, however it hit Honduras as a minimal category 1, slowly moving across the country, Mitch was the eighth most powerful hurricane on record.

Honduran officials enacted a widespread curfew following the storm, and for 15 days temporarily restricted constitutional rights to maintain order. There were outbreaks of various diseases, and many residents faced food and water shortages.

Being “the deadliest Atlantic hurricane” in over 200 years, Mitch caused catastrophic impacts across its path. The President of Honduras estimated that Mitch set back about 50 years of economic development. In Honduras, the storm wrecked about 35,000 houses and damaged another 50,000, leaving up to 1.5 million people homeless, about 20 percent of the country’s population. Mitch directly caused $2 billion in damage, with an additional $1.8 billion in indirect costs.

Most of the damage were ruined crops, and cash crop exports were cut by 9.4 percent in 1999, largely due to the storm. Over 70 percent of the transportation infrastructure was damaged, mostly damaged highways and bridges. Widespread areas experienced power outages, and about 70 percent of the country lost its water sources after the storm.

In the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, a large landslide affected three neighbourhoods forming a temporary dam. Throughout the country, there were at least 7,000 fatalities. Honduras requested international assistance, which totalled $2.8 billion over a several-year period. Despite this, the GDP began decreasing at the end of 1998, and contracted by 1.9 percent in 1999.

Hurricane Mitch dropped historic amounts of rainfall in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala, with unofficial reports of up to 75 inches. Roughly 2.7 million were left homeless across Central America as a result of the hurricane.