Nicaraguans sleep outdoors as quakes continue

MASAYA, Nicaragua - Residents of this central Nicaraguan province camped on the streets outside their homes Saturday, terrorized by a string of earthquakes that have demolished homes and left at least five dead.

Smaller quakes continued Saturday and more are expected in the coming days, said Nicaragua's Institute of Territorial Studies. They follow Thursday's magnitude 5.9 quake, which killed four people, and a magnitude 5.2 temblor that killed a 4-year-old boy Friday.

Dozens of earthquakes shook the country on Friday alone, and the largest of them, centered about 30 miles west of the capital, Managua, shattered scores of homes. The boy died in the town of La Ceibita when a wall of his home collapsed.

The government reported that about 2,000 people's homes were damaged or destroyed by the nerve-shattering series of temblors. In one of the worst-hit towns, Valle de la Laguna, 79 houses were destroyed and 1,000 others damaged in Thursday's quake, said Lt. Col. Mario Perez Cassar, the head of Nicaragua's civil defense.

At least 50 people were injured when the quakes sent tiled roofs raining down on the occupants of mainly stone and adobe houses in the region. Many of the injured were being treated at Masaya's Hilario Sanchez hospital.

Some towns were cut off when boulders tumbled down volcanic slopes that surround the Apoyo lake near the quake's epicenter, cutting off roadways. Army helicopters were used to ferry out the injured.

In at least a dozen towns and villages, residents afraid to go back into their homes slept on the streets early Saturday even as rain pelted down. Improvised shelters were set up in schools and in tents on public property to house those afraid, or unable, to go home.

''We don't dare go back into our restaurant, because we're afraid it could tumble down on top of us,'' said Dora Tellez, who operates an eatery overlooking the Apoyo lake.

On Dec. 23, 1972, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook Nicaragua, destroying its capital and killing more than 10,000 people.