Iota lost intensity as it moved across El Salvador Wednesday, but the storm's heavy rain lingered in Nicaragua.

In addition to the missing, Hurricane Iota is blamed for the deaths of at least 20 people. Nicaragua’s vice president said 16 people have died in that country. Officials say two people died in Colombia, and one each in El Salvador and Panama.

Iota lost intensity as it moved across El Salvador Wednesday, but the storm's heavy rain lingered in Nicaragua.

In addition to the missing, Hurricane Iota is blamed for the deaths of at least 20 people. Nicaragua’s vice president said 16 people have died in that country. Officials say two people died in Colombia, and one each in El Salvador and Panama.

Sixteen of the deaths occurred in Nicaragua, the nation's Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo said Wednesday. One person was killed in El Salvador and Panama, and two were killed in Colombia, according to officials in each country.

Rescuers searched at the site of a landslide in northern Nicaragua, where the local government confirmed four deaths and neighbors spoke of at least 16. A short video from the nation's emergency management agency showed a massive bowl-shaped mountainside that had collapsed. Police blocked media access to the site on the Macizo de Peñas Blancas, a mountain in Matagalpa province, about 80 miles north of Managua.

There were seven confirmed dead at the mountain, and the search continued, Murillo said.

Miguel Rodríguez, who works on a ranch next to the site, said he saw at least seven bodies. "The landslide came with all the dirt, and it became like a river going down. It took all of the little houses that were there. There were five homes, five families," Rodríguez said.

One home was spared on the other side of the slide. But it was in a precarious position, and rescuers were trying to reach it, he said. Nicaragua's army said it was sending 100 rescuers to the site. Access was complicated by downed trees blocking roads.

Iota arrived Monday evening with winds of 155 mph, hitting nearly the same location as Hurricane Eta had two weeks earlier. By early Wednesday, Iota had dissipated over El Salvador, but the storm's torrential rains remained a threat.

The storm's center passed just south of Tegucigalpa, the mountainous capital of Honduras, where residents of low-lying, flood-prone areas were evacuated, as were residents of hillside neighborhoods vulnerable to landslides.

Along Honduras' remote eastern coast, people fled their homes as waters rose.

"What affected us most here was the flooding," said Teonela Paisano Wood, mayor of the Honduran town of Brus Laguna. "We are in danger if it keeps raining."

Mirna Wood, vice president of the Miskito ethnic group in Honduras' far eastern Gracias a Dios region, was in Tegucigalpa collecting donations for her community ravaged by Eta when Iota hit.

Some 40,000 people in the area had moved to shelters, but others remained stranded near the border with Nicaragua. Some were rescued by Nicaraguan authorities, she said.

"We are facing an incredible emergency," Wood said. "There is no food. There is no water."

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