Hurricane Felix makes landfall in Nicaragua as Category 5

Hurricane Felix came ashore on Nicaragua’s remote Miskito Coast early today as a Category 5 storm, damaging hundreds of buildings in the region before moving west toward the heart of this country of 7 million people.

Felix, packing 160 mph winds as it touched land, was quickly losing strength as it advanced over the sparsely populated mountains along the Nicaraguan-Honduran border. It is expected to weaken into a tropical storm as it passes near Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, late tonight.

“Thanks to God ... the hurricane is entering in the least-populated areas of Honduras, which are areas of forests and farmland,” Honduras President Manuel Zelaya told a news conference. “God willing, it will lose force as it crosses the Segovia Mountains of Nicaragua.”

More than 1,600 miles away in the Pacific, a second and much weaker hurricane, Henriette, threatened to strike between the resort cities of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo on the southern tip of Baja California.

As many as 60,000 tourists, most of them Americans, remained in the region, Mexican officials said. Henriette was a Category 1 storm with winds reaching 85 mph.

In Honduras, authorities warned of flooding and landslides as Felix dropped an expected 15 inches of rain over much of the country. Hurricane Mitch also was a weakened storm when it passed through central Honduras in 1998, setting off floods and landslides that killed thousands.

Honduran officials declared a “red alert” in Tegucigalpa, home to more than 1 million people.

Officials at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Felix “will likely produce life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.”

In Nicaragua, hundreds of homes were damaged and two boats with 35 passengers were missing in the coastal town of Puerto Cabezas, population 30,000, according to local news reports. Thousands of Miskito Indians in the region declined to be evacuated ahead of the storm.

Nicaraguan Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo called on his people to pray “for our brothers on the Caribbean.”

“We Nicaraguans have, historically, faced the violence of nature, and we’ve done so with solidarity and a sense of resignation,” Obando y Bravo said.

President Zelaya of Honduras said he feared serious damage to the country’s corn crop, which was expected to be the largest in many years.

hector.tobar@latimes.com

Special correspondent Renderos reported from San Pedro Sula and Times staff writer Tobar from Mexico City.