US Army pulls girl, 3, to safety from flooded plains of Honduras during Storm Eta

People salvage belongings in the streets of in Planeta, Honduras
Twitter / Joint Task Force-Bravo

This is the incredible moment the US army pulls a three-year-old girl to safety during Tropical Storm Eta.

Surveillance footage shot from a Blackhawk helicopter shows the toddler being scrambled away from flooded palm tree-lined plains of Honduras.

After striking Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane and killing nearly 70 people from Mexico to Panama, the storm moved into the Gulf of Mexico early on Monday near where the Everglades meets the sea, with maximum sustained winds of 50mph.

It is the 28th named storm of a busy Atlantic hurricane season, tying the 2005 record. Hurricane season lasts until November 30.

Some 150 people are dead or missing in Guatemala after dozens of homes were buried by mudslides in the central region of Alta Verapaz. 

Large parts of neighbouring Honduras are under water and the number of deaths doubled on Monday to reach at least 57 while eight people were reported missing.

Panama has reported 17 deaths and 68 people are missing, Security Minister Juan Pino said. In Mexico, officials in the southern state of Chiapas said the storm had claimed at least 20 lives.

People walk in floodwaters in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Eta and cold fronts in Macuspana
People walk in floodwaters in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Eta and cold fronts in Macuspana
JESUS CASTELLANOS PEREZ

President Alejandro Giammattei said he would ask the US government to grant “temporary protected status” to Guatemalans living in the United States because of the damages from Tropical Storm Eta as it makes landfall in Florida. 

An estimated 21,000 homes were damaged by the storm.

A relief operation is underway in Honduras after two major rivers overflowed, trapping tens of thousands of people on the roofs of their homes.

In a statement, Queen Elizabeth II said: "Prince Philip and I were deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life and destruction caused by Hurricane Eta.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured or lost their lives, and all those whose homes and livelihoods have been affected."

Eta’s torrential rains wrought their worst damage early last Thursday afternoon as many residents in Queja, a farming town of about 1,200 Poqomchi Mayas, ate lunch.

The mountainside above them gave way, sweeping wooden and tin-roofed homes down a mountainside and burying them under many feet of orange mud and debris.

It had been raining heavily for days as Eta, then a tropical depression, passed. Emilio Caal, a farmer who survived the slide, said 40 members of his family were missing.

It took a day just for rescuers to reach the scene because other landslides blocked highways. Supplies for survivors had to be flown in by helicopter.

Additional reporting by PA

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