Powerful winds and heavy rain buffeted this small port city of 60,000, where local authorities announced a curfew to prevent looting and rushed to cut off electricity citywide in hopes of avoiding potential injuries.

The threat of mudslides loomed as the slow-moving storm appeared to hover on the coastline, buffeting the area with heavy winds and rains, according to national meteorology director Milagros Castro.

No fatalities related to the storm were reported, said army spokesman General Omar Hallesleven.

At 1700 GMT, Beta had diminished in strength to a Category One storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale out of a maximum of five, with sustained winds of up to 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour, according to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The center warned of storm surge and rain-triggered flooding, even as Beta was expected to further weaken into a tropical storm late Sunday and finally dissipate on Monday.

The storm was expected to move west-southwest across Nicaragua, generating rainfall accumulations in Nicaragua and eastern Honduras of about 38 centimeters (15 inches).

Beta was the record 23rd tropical storm and 13th hurricane of the Atlantic hurricane season.

It follows a week after the most powerful recorded hurricane, Wilma, devastated Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and then southern Florida.

Beta made landfall Sunday at Karawala, 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Puerto Cabezas, wrecking a number of buildings and toppling trees.

Town mayor Gustavo Ramosa said about two-thirds of the town's 3,000 people had been evacuated from their homes during the night.

Earlier Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos had said there was neither the time nor the means to evacuate the city properly and that authorities should focus on getting everyone into stable shelters. Thousands of residents trudged through driving rains to reach shelters.

"House structures in Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas) are extremely fragile given the strength of Beta," the president said. "So from here on in we are asking the international community for its always generous solidarity with the people of Nicaragua."

"We are doing everything humanly possible to save lives. I just ask God to protect our people," an emotional Bolanos said.

In Honduras, the government maintained a red alert for the storm and an emergency committee was working on evacuating 150,000 people from areas of the capital, Tegucigalpa, that are prone to flooding and mudslides. Evacuations were being readied in five of the country's 18 departments.

"If it is an event similar to what Hurricane Mitch was (in October 1998), we are talking about evacuating 150,000 people and 60,000-70,000 will be put in shelters," said committee director Jose Angel Herrera.

Honduran President Ricardo Maduro said Spain, the United States, Britain and Japan had already offered assistance in coping with the storm's fallout.

Civil defense officials also declared an alert in neighboring El Salvador.

Earlier Beta battered the Providencia, a Colombian island of 5,000 residents located 210 kilometers (130 miles) east of the Nicaraguan coast.

Damage was serious but there were no fatalities, according to Colombian officials.

"There's a lot of destruction," Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said just before leaving for the island of San Andres.

All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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