Hurricane Felix death toll nears 100, official says

(CNN) -- Rescuers searched for survivors of Hurricane Felix on Thursday as the death toll from the powerful storm rose to nearly 100, according to The Associated Press.

Ninety-eight Nicaraguans were killed, Abelino Cox told the AP. Cox is the spokesman for the Regional Emergency Committee in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.

At least one Honduran has died, an official told the AP.

The bodies of 25 fishermen were found along Honduras' Miskito Coast, believed to be from a group of 109 Nicaraguan Miskito Indians who sought refuge in canoes when Felix hit, according to The Associated Press.

Authorities rescued 52 Miskito Indians who lived on low-lying reefs and keys off the coast, said Honduran Congresswoman Carolina Echeverria.

They survived the hurricane's deluge by grasping floating objects until help arrived, and bodies that could not be recovered were seen floating in the water, she said.

Felix barreled ashore about 7:45 a.m. ET Tuesday near the Honduras-Nicaragua border as a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds, the most intense classification on the Saffir-Simpson scale used by meteorologists.

Jorge Ramon Arnesto Soza, executive secretary of the National System for the Prevention, Mitigation and Attention of Disasters, said the death toll was likely to increase as reports came in from remote areas.

Survivors of the storm struggled Thursday. An AP photographer in an isolated Nicaraguan village saw residents cracking coconuts to drink the milk because they had nothing else.

The U.S. Southern Command has sent the USS Wasp to Nicaragua to help with relief efforts, and Venezuela also sent aid, according to the AP. At least 57 Cuban doctors and nurses already working on the Miskito Coast were lending a hand, too.

Survivors who were fished from the sea told harrowing stories. See dramatic photos of the monster storm's aftermath »

Dario Zacarias, 21, told La Prensa newspaper in Managua, Nicaragua, that he'd floated in the sea, lashed to a buoy, until he was picked up by a fishing boat and taken to Puerto Cabezas.

"My captain died, [saying] 'Save yourselves. Tell my wife that I couldn't hold out any longer,' " Zacarias said. "I had to let a woman go who had died, too." Watch how officials fear deadly landslides in Honduras »

In Honduras, meanwhile, in addition to the 52 Miskito Indian survivors, an undetermined number of others aboard a boat were rescued, Echeverria said.

Nine of the first 52 were found unconscious, "but I just heard from the hospital that they are out of danger," said Echeverria, who represents a district along Nicaragua's border with Honduras.

"Compared with our brothers in Nicaragua, our situation is less serious," she said.

About 11,000 Miskito Indians in the isolated region did not evacuate before the storm. Honduran officials had trouble getting to the remote region but did manage to evacuate more than 3,100, according to regional army commander Col. Carlos Edgar Mejia of the 115th Infantry Brigade.

Felix tore the roofs from buildings in Puerto Cabezas and damaged the town's hospital and airport, Nicaraguan Civil Defense officials said.

The United Nations' World Food Program said in a statement that the hurricane ripped the roof off a Nicaragua hotel where staff members were staying and destroyed a food aid warehouse.

Nearly 80 percent of Nicaraguans live below the poverty level, many in ill-constructed homes.

Felix was the second Category 5 storm to hit the region this year, marking the first recorded instance of two such storms making landfall in a single hurricane season. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began keeping records in 1886.

Hurricane Dean, also a Category 5 storm, slammed into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula two weeks ago. E-mail to a friend

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