Hurricane Stan - Impact

Impact

Around the time of Stan's existence, torrential rainstorms dropped upwards of 20 inches (500 mm) of rain, causing severe flash floods, mud slides, and crop damage (particularly to the coffee crop which was close to harvest) over portions of Mexico and Central America, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica. Most of the rainstorms were non-tropical in nature and impossible to relate to the hurricane; however, the impact of the larger weather system can be considered as a whole.

Hundreds were reported missing and were feared dead throughout the region. One estimate put the death toll above 2,000 in Guatemala alone. The final death toll will likely never be known due to the extensive decomposition of bodies in the mud. Note that only 80-100 of the deaths were estimated to have been as a result of Stan; the rest were not caused by Stan itself but were the result of the large system of non-tropical rains that had spawned the hurricane.

Most of the reported fatalities were as a result of the flooding and mudslides, although eight of the deaths in Nicaragua were as a result of a boat carrying migrants from Ecuador and Peru that ran ashore. A large portion of the figure comes from one village alone, as a mudslide completely destroyed the village of Panabaj in Guatemala's Sololá department.